CBS/AP/ November 2, 2012, 9:31 PM

Sandy victims run low on fuel and patience

Cars wait in a 30 block long line for gas in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Friday, Nov. 2, 2012.

Cars wait in a 30 block long line for gas in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Friday, Nov. 2, 2012. / AP Photo/Seth Wenig

NEW YORK When it came to fuel supplies and patience, the New York tri-state area was running close to empty Friday.

From storm-scarred New Jersey to parts of Connecticut, a widespread lack of gasoline or electricity to pump it brought grousing, gridlock and worse, compounding frustrations as millions of Americans struggled to return to normal days after Superstorm Sandy. Local and federal officials moved in to help control the dwindling supply, including a gas-rationing system based on license plates ordered by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Lines of cars, and in many places queues of people on foot carrying bright red jerry cans for generators, waited for hours for the precious fuel. And those were the lucky ones. Other customers gave up after finding only closed stations or dry pumps marked with yellow tape or "No Gas" signs. In one extreme incident, a man pulled a gun in one gas-line fracas that led to an arrest.

"EMPTY!" declared the red-type headline dominating the New York Daily News' front page.

"I drove around last night and couldn't find anything," said a relieved Kwabena Sintim-Misa as he finally prepared to fill up Friday morning in Fort Lee, N.J., near the George Washington Bridge, where the wait in line lasted three hours.

Arlend Pierre-Louis of Elmont, on Long Island, said he awoke at 4:30 a.m. to try to get gas.

When he finally found some -- "the one working pump in Elmont" -- the line was so long he gave up and returned to his home, which still has no light or hot water.

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Fuel shortages and long waits for gas fuel anxiety

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Long Island, N.Y. desperate for gas

At a Hess gas station in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, the 10-block line caused confusion among passing drivers.

"There's been a little screaming, a little yelling. And I saw one guy banging on the hood of a car," said Vince Levine, who got in line in his van at 5 a.m. and was still waiting at 8 a.m. "But mostly it's been OK."

While the snaking lines and frayed nerves revived memories for some of the crippling Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, a cabdriver stuck in a 17-block line at a Manhattan station remained philosophical.

"I don't blame anybody," said Harum Prince. "God, he knows why he brought this storm."

Many tried to heed Mayor Michael Bloomberg's admonition to "have some patience" as the stricken metro area recovers from the unprecedented storm that upended daily life with power outages, food shortages and other frustrations besides lack of fuel.

But tempers boiled over in some places.

Arguments in gas station queues in New York's Queens borough and in Pelham led to arrests, authorities said. In the first case, a man pulled a gun, and in the second police confiscated a box cutter. No one was hurt.

Power outages that lingered across the region prevented some gas stations that had fuel from being able to pump it, officials said. But fuel supplies themselves were badly disrupted by the storm.

Sandy damaged 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 Port of New York and New Jersey was slowly starting to accept tankers, but some cargo was being diverted to the Port of Virginia. Federal requirements for low-smog gasoline have been lifted, and fuel trucks are on their way to the area.

Officials said they were working to speed the flow of fuel.

On Friday, the Obama administration ordered the purchase of up to 12 million gallons of unleaded fuel and up to 10 million gallons of diesel fuel for distribution in areas affected by the storm to supplement private-sector efforts. It will be transported by tanker trucks to New York, New Jersey and other damaged communities.

In addition, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano temporarily waived a maritime rule to allow foreign oil tankers coming from the Gulf of Mexico to enter Northeastern ports. The action, she said, would "remove a potential obstacle to bringing additional fuel to the storm-damaged region."


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© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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WhereisOT says:
Not much "balance" or just a tiny bit of logic.....No brained waiting, sometimes begging for the end times nutjobs living in fear are great at digging holes in the ground and burying food, fuel and a course guns, bullets, guns more bullets more guns...
What those guns be for....maybe "hunting" and such...putting food on the stump...If any wildthings are walking about after devastation...

Gas station owners in The most Populated area of the Country still wearing blinders....Pump till they are dry...
No "producers/creators" making calls...maybe planning a little ahead with bulk fuel haulers ready to go...
And not all People kept under the thumb of the "creators" their entire lives can afford generators, or even gas cans to fill, to ready for the storm....
Not much time to prepare for others doing better in these times to gas up vehicles ahead of the storm...

So blame the Government....the same who demand no Government now complaining bout the Governments response....

(Is Superstorm Sandy the New 'Normal'?)

Sit back and find out....
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julianpenrod says:
This is all crucial for the New World Order. They intend to enslave mankind and, if establishing a state of universal, perpetual crisis is necessary, they will use it. This only prepares the gullible to accept it when they declare unending catastrophe. If they are permitted to be believed, they will arrange an explosion at a nuclear reactor and require people not even to go outside, or they will carry out an above ground nuclear explosion and claim a meteor hit the earth and establish martial law "to keep the peace".
It was a week at least of build up to this event, and Sandy was described as "unconventional" every step of the way. But at no time did any climate change adherents mention that this fit the bill for the supposed massive storms that global warming was supposed to bring! Not one! Because many if not most climate change adherents are themselves New World Order moles, making sure the discussion on claimte change doesn't go near chemtrails changing the environment, and preparing the public for the coming age of unceasing disaster. But they knew this was a fraud!
Defenders of the New World Order will contradict this, but, as with all who promote a lie, they have nothing they can defend their point with. As a result, they utilize non argument methods in their replies, such as arrogance, contempt, non validated dismissiveness, viciousness, mockery, vulgarity.
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julianpenrod says:
The fact of the matter is, this was all a lie, a manufactured "disaster". It's not difficult to do, simply simulate those aspects of "disaster" that most people are going to view, and make sure to evacuate populations from where more massive "damage" is going to be engineered! Not that there wasn't a storm, that was arranged through chemtrail contamination of the air, but the "effects" were man made.
In New Jersey and New York, there was no damage to the electrical grid, the electrical companies simply shut the power down. In New York, they admitted it. In New Jersey, cables were left hanging from poles for days. That's illegal if they are live. They cordoned them off, but left them hanging. The start of the outage was equally suspicious. Power went off in New Jersey for about a minute, but then came back up! The system compensated. But the companies took that as their "excuse" that the gullible would buy, and they then shut all power completely for days. Even streetlights and highways lights were out, and they aren't fed by overhead power lines! And there were many people, evident New World Order supporters, who had power, even while the rest of their neighborhood didn't. If there were as many generators going as the number of anomalously lighted houses required, there would be constant noise and the smell of emissions in the air. There weren't.
"Flooding" is no problem to simulate. Mahwah, New Jersey has been doing it for years, opening the floodgates of their reservoir when it got only a little above half full, inundating lower lying communities like Wayne. They started it about ten years ago, but have been doing it steadily since.
Not even that they need to actually flood an area. They simply make sure those who aren't New World Order operatives are evacuated, by force if necessary. Then they won't be there to report what actually is going on. Like the Mantoloking bridge being attacked. They'll make sure some moles who "managed to stay behind" supply reports that corroborate the "official story", and the malleable will believe it. Remember, the police killed the man on Danziger Bridge in New Orleans, to keep him from seeing that they were going to dynamite the levees!
But, everywhere, the evidence was more than obvious this was all manufactured to inconvenience the public. For the first four days, there were no more than a few public utility trucks to be seen, and most were vans, not ones with cherry pickers. Trees were allowed to sit, even leaning on power lines, for days. But the fact they were leaning on power lines means the lines weren't broken. Stores deliberately let supplies of flashlights and generators deplete. They made no move to replenish, even after roads were opened. Even after the power came back, cable connection stayed out for more than a day. It's all supposedly pole work, why the delay with cable? But, then, the reality is the power was turned off with the flick of a switch, and cable connection, which could get the truth out and combat the official lies, was delayed until the gullible were impressed. And they made sure to limit the working gas stations to only one in an area. All others were ordered closed. Christie lied that most gas stations lost power and couldn't pump and didn't have generators to pump gas. With three gas stations on corners of an intersection, why would one have power and not the other two? And gas stations want to make money! They would make sure to have generators to pump under all circumstances! What's more, there were gas stations that worked even thr first day after the storm, meaning they still had power! They stopped the next day, even though gas could have been supplied them!
And this "storm" was, in fact, caused by chemtrails. "Meteorologists" were predicting it with pinpoint accuracy as much as a week out! And Western Maryland experienced a "wet snow" during the event. This was what Northeast New Jersey experienced on Halloween 2011. But the snow was not normal water, it was a heavier chemical than water coming from the chemtrail chemicals in the clouds. Just like last year, this "snow" was described as breaking tree limbs because the trees still had leaves on them, "making them too heavy". Leaves are light! Especially dry leaves! One person could hold aloft a bag with all the foliage from a single tree! It is patently impossible that a tree branch that held snows in the past could not hold snow and a scattering of leaves now!
And what trees did fall over, and weren't knocked over in fabricating the event, had root structures no more than twice the diameter of the trunk. This comes from root systems being poisoned by the chemicals coming out of the skies.
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Michaelidare says:
Why is the TriState area still experiencing a shortage of gas? Isn't it the responsibility of FEMA to arrange for this to be brought in to gas stations that were operating so that it would be available? FEMA is supposed to deal with disaster relief therefore they should know instantly what resources will be depleted. They should have acted on TUESDAY not FRIDAY. How are people to run generators as well. I read the article on the CBS that the Obama administration purchased gas to be brought in on Friday. Which is good...glad someone did something...but a little late don't you think. My friend in Baldwin New York was out driving around last night and there was no gas in the area. There were 40 car lineups at stations where there was no gas. They were waiting to get deliveries. There are lucrative regional contracts of the distribution of gas and oil. Looks like the powerful owners of these contracts don't want to loose a penny of profit therefore no gas brought in. From an outside observer this is not a disaster problem...sounds sadly like a bit of greed.
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Michaelidare says:
Why is the TriState area still experiencing a shortage of gas? Isn't it the responsibility of FEMA to arrange for this to be brought in to gas stations that were operating so that it would be available? FEMA is supposed to deal with disaster relief therefore they should know instantly what resources will be depleted. They should have acted on TUESDAY not FRIDAY. How are people to run generators as well. I read the article on the CBS that the Obama administration purchased gas to be brought in on Friday. Which is good...glad someone did something...but a little late don't you think. My friend in Baldwin New York was out driving around last night and there was no gas in the area. There were 40 car lineups at stations where there was no gas. They were waiting to get deliveries. There are lucrative regional contracts of the distribution of gas and oil. Looks like the powerful owners of these contracts don't want to loose a penny of profit therefore no gas brought in. From an outside observer this is not a disaster problem...sounds sadly like a bit of greed.
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WhereisOT says:
"If" far worse weather events come....then what...

Best to "privatize" disaster relief.....that way the criminals behint the liar romeny will save only his/their "kind"...."profits" for life saving will be made by rescue tipping....Go for the richest first...gets a bigger tip...

Got to dig the abandoned zillionaires bird story...60 to 90 million for "apartments"..crane boom melts in the wind...run rich "people" run, save YOURSELVES, the World would come to an end without we "creators"..
What about birdy.....***k that bird, I can buy a billion more just like it...
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TomRoff says:
Hey New Yorkers - CALM DOWN! .....The Messiah is sending you windmills and solar panels TODAY!!
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varigdc10 says:
Hate to say this but the average American citizen really never had to live thru something like this as in other countries. What would the people do if they had to survive and go thru the horrors of what Europeans went thru during and after WW2, cannot even image. We all have to think about this now, this will not be the last time, things will only get progressively worst from now on, so get used to it and just behave like grown ups.
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Void-Master says:
melchg01
Ok so how do they get the fuel into the station? Do they have a direct pipeline into each station? Geez......how about people stop driving around on their limited gas and realize that its gonna take some time to get back to normal life.

***

There's a thing called planning. No one really has the authority to compel gas stations to have generators, especially if they would have to buy them at their own expense. I realize that U.S. society is not really mature enough to grasp that and function that way. But it is still in the wrong to presume otherwise.

Still, think if a group of stations *had* thought ahead and had fueled-up generators on hand. Imagine how well they'd have made out -- even without price gouging. In fact, they'd have done better if they had just powered up and sold their gas at the normal price.

C'mon capitalism; this is your shot to prove yourself. Live or die here and now.
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-EmpireGeorge________- replies:
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When the green electrical grid failed us one again, guess what was working ? our cars, trucks, our generators.....running on what ? dirty, filthy Gasoline.....a very reliable source of energy....so for those who desire the world to be rid of fossil fuels, think again what we were to do, if you achieved your goal, and we relied completely on green electric, we'd be screwed more than we already were.....gasoline means independence.
-EmpireGeorge________- replies:
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When the green electrical grid failed us one again, guess what was working ? our cars, trucks, our generators.....running on what ? dirty, filthy Gasoline.....a very reliable source of energy....so for those who desire the world to be rid of fossil fuels, think again what we were to do, if you achieved your goal, and we relied completely on green electric, we'd be screwed more than we already were.....gasoline means independence.
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lenapter says:
First Katrina, now Sandy, brought to you by the U S Chamber of Commerce-A Republican PAC. that has contributed billions over the past decade to Republican candidates to relax allowable coal and other posionus pollutants into the atmosphere. God forbid Romney is elected! You might as well get all the long range missiles, and destroy what is left of the ozone layer.
So much damage has been done to our planets environment. the Earth, for all intense and purposes, is a dead planet, already
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