Gasoline Shortages Complicate Recovery, Spread to Outer Regions

All in all, points north of NYC were largely spared the storm damage of Hurricane Sandy. We got flooded to the gills the last time around with Irene, but got fairly lucky this time around, especially seeing how Sandy ripped up NYC and especially New Jersey, who took that bitch head-on.

Most of what we suffered up here in the Hudson Valley were strong gusts, moderately sustained high winds, and related damage. Some trees down, widely scattered saturation of power outages. Dutchess County had about 25-30%  loss, more rural Ulster seemed to peak around 50%. I should add that Central-Hudson Gas  & Electric seems to be on track and doing well with restoration as, thankfully, they usually are, being well-practiced over the years with our winter storms in the region.

We did also suffer localized flooding in areas along the riverbanks, where the storm surge combined with a full-moon high-tide did do some damage. Yet that did not seem to be of immediate concern to the region overall. 

Nonetheless, a week after the storm, we are feeling the impact in a new way here upstate. Though we fared well, and almost felt cheated even (for us daredevils) there is a new development, that even in our last crisis did not seem to be a genuine factor. Upstate along the Hudson River Valley, we are now experiencing a fuel shortage. This was totally unexpected, especially this long after the storm. But as we are now learning, the NY Harbor was closed, and surrounding fuel terminals were all offline in NY and NJ.

Due to the closure of the harbor, it also appears that the primary fuel depot for the mid-Hudson region, north along the river, has also been deprived of supply. Considering the fact that we have had fuel to our local gas stations since the storm, it does not appear that the primary mid-Hudson depot suffered significant damage, even though they are on the riverfront. (Their containers must have held against the flooding, it appears.) It does appear, however, that we have exhausted the local supply stored at that depot.

Beginning yesterday, and now more acutely today, we are suddenly seeing fuel shortages with local gas stations out of gasoline entirely. So even though we were not directly effected by the storm, a week later, the impact is being felt more seriously.

We will get by, we will all recover, from upstate to the Jersey Shore, but there are some interesting lessons to learn here for a survivor.

One, even if you are not directly effected by a catastrophe, you may be impacted harder in the aftermath.

Two, it appears that locally, there is no more than a one-to-two week supply of fuel.

Three, supply routes will effect delivery of important goods. Watch for "choke points." Even for all our devastation in Irene, we had no fuel deprivation because NY Harbor was open. 

Of course, closer to the affected area, everything form mass transit to taxi cabs are basically, shit out of luck.









Tweet