What Would Happen if Oil Supplies in America Suddenly Dried Up?

A MUST READ, riveting article from earthfirst.com

Lines of cars stretch for miles waiting to fill up their tanks, some drivers inching along as the line slowly moves while others, long out of gas, have no choice but to push their vehicles down the street. People are testy, eyeing each other with suspicion, getting into physical scuffles when they think someone cut them in line. Some sleep in their cars overnight in the parking lot, waiting for the tanker to pull up so they’ll have enough gas to get to work in the morning. If this sounds like a flashback to the gas crisis of the 70s, you weren’t in the Southeast U.S. in late September and early October of 2008.

Atlanta, Asheville, Charlotte, Nashville, Raleigh, Columbia – these are just a few of the cities that were hit with a major gas shortage in the weeks after two back-to-back hurricanes shut down oil refineries in the Gulf Coast. It started off slowly; local news stories casually mentioned that due to some refineries closing down in Texas, some cities could end up with less gas than usual. Soon, more and more yellow ‘Sorry, Out of Service’ bags began appearing on pumps. People began to worry – if I can’t find gas, how am I going to get to work? That’s when the panic buying began.

Too many people started topping off their tanks, intent on making sure they were on ‘F’ at all times. Others started hoarding, filling up multiple gas cans and the tanks of cars they didn’t use on a regular basis. Of course, that just made things worse, and soon finding gas was all but impossible in cities all over the Southeast. People had to call dozens of stations ahead of time to see if they had gas, only to arrive and be told they were too late. At stations that did have gas, police were forced to control the crowds after some pulled out baseball bats, cut ahead in line and dared anyone who didn’t like it to speak up. Some people were arrested for siphoning gas from unattended vehicles.

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