New Yorker Sean Bailey accused of pulling gun in gas line
NEW YORK The fight for fuel after Superstorm Sandy is starting to get nasty.
New York City authorities say a motorist was arrested after he tried to cut in line at a gas station in Queens early Thursday and pointed a pistol at another motorist who complained.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown says 35-year-old Sean Bailey, of Queens, was arrested on charges of menacing and criminal possession of a weapon. It wasn't clear whether he had a lawyer.
If convicted, Bailey could face up to 15 years in prison.
NYC transit nightmare continues
Drivers in parts of New York and New Jersey lined up Thursday for hours at gas stations that were struggling to stay supplied. The power outages and flooding caused by Superstorm Sandy have forced many gas stations to close and disrupted the flow of fuel from refineries to those stations that are open.
On Thursday, New Jersey State Police deployed troopers at all gas stations located on the rest stops of two major highways, CBS New York station WCBS-TV reports.
At the same time, millions of gallons of gasoline are sitting at the ready in storage tanks, pipelines and tankers that can't unload their cargoes.
"It's like a stopped up drain," said Tom Kloza, Chief Oil Analyst at the Oil Price Information Service.
Superstorm Sandy found a host of ways to cripple the region's energy infrastructure. Its winds knocked down power lines and its floods swamped electrical substations that send power to entire neighborhoods. It also mangled ports that accept fuel tankers and flooded underground equipment that sends fuel through pipelines. Without power, fuel terminals can't pump gasoline onto tanker trucks, and gas stations can't pump fuel into customers' cars.
The Energy Department reported Thursday that 13 of the region's 33 fuel terminals were closed. Sections of two major pipelines that serve the area — the Colonial Pipeline and the Buckeye Pipeline — were also closed.
Thousands of gas stations in New Jersey and Long Island were closed because of a lack of power. AAA estimates that 60 percent of the stations in New Jersey are shut along with up to 70 percent of the stations in Long Island.
Thursday morning the traffic to a Hess station on 9th Avenue in New York City filled two lanes of the avenue for two city blocks. Four police officers were directing the slow parade of cars into the station.
A few blocks away, a Mobil station sat empty behind orange barricades, with a sign explaining it was out of gas.
Taxi and car service drivers were running dry — and giving up, even though demand for rides was high because of the crippled public transit system. Northside Car Service in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has 250 drivers available on a typical Thursday evening. Yesterday they had just 20. "The gas lines are too long," said Thomas Miranda, an operator at Northside.
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This is not the case after a storm like this and it is part of the stress that will continue to kill people long after the storm is over.
The government and FEMA have vastly improved responses to these storms....but the facts are - you are responsible for you after the storm - government will help out but it will not get to you until days or weeks later. Being reliant on self is the best thing you can do in a situation like this.Helping your neighbor and lots and lots of patience are needed to get through the aftermath.
Maybe this is a wake-up call that America needs societal . . . and not a business model . . . for the 21st Century.
The system actually worked and Deming an American was granted a holiday in Japan.
He urged this system be implimented in America but the system of Supply and Demand was firmly embraced by the executives of the time.
It was only after Japan became an economic powerhouse that the Americans took note. There was a time I remember "made in Japan" was a joke, but that was too long ago.
Today, we buy from Asian markets, and they suck. Why? Because Americans are stupid.
They are all gonna get new homes and $ out of this disaster. They will come out of this better than they started.
Behave and stop acting like big babies! Grow up! Maybe if they get thrown in jail that will make them act like law abiding citizens instead of lunatics!
Unbelievable!
It's rapidly deteriorating into a humanitarian crisis in America's largest and wealthiest city. FEMA and the Red Cross should have been moving people and resources into the zone when the first storm tracks showed a possible NYC hit. Everyone knows you can't send the trucks into the city AFTER the subway has flooded and the streets are gridlocked.