New Highs For Gas In Atlanta

Katrina Pushes Rule Of Supply And Demand To New Extreme

(CBS)  Seventy-five percent of Atlanta's gas comes from a gulf pipeline, which could be off-line four to six weeks minimum. Apply the rules of supply and demand and you've got gas prices spiking big time here, as in much of the country CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod reports.

The last 24 hours have seen something unseen in Atlanta for three decades: gas lines.

"If I run out, I run out. I will walk because I can't afford it any more," said Rhonda Payne, an Atlanta resident.

Prices here jumped $.40 cents a gallon since Tuesday, part of a nationwide trend: Fifty cents a gallon in Ohio, $.30 cents in Maine. A gas station in New Jersey changed his prices at least three times in one day. That's against the law.

"If they abuse our citizens, if they gouge them, they'll pay the consequences," Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue declares.

Georgia's governor promised that won't happen here where some stations closed, unable to get re-supplied at all.

Mike Cleary, who runs an Exxon station, says, "We just wanna do the right thing. We're making enough money at the price it is right now."

Cleary says he'll keep his Exxon regular under $3, disgusted by reports of $6 premium nearby.

When Axelrod asks Cleary, "What happened to southern hospitality?", Cleary was blunt.

"It's all gone," he said. "I don't know what happened to it. It's no longer here."

Mike Vasaya was briefly selling BP premium for $6.07 Wednesday.

When confronted, Vasaya, the owner, explains his rationale for the high price.

"It was just to stop people from buying it for awhile," Vasaya says.

Confused? Vasaya claims he was worried about his supply and figured the best way to keep people from buying gas was charging too much.

"So you couldn't just go out and put a sign out there that says "no more gas today," Axelrod asks.

"No. That's enough for today. I hope so," Vasaya replies.

Here in Georgia, Gov. Perdue is asking people to fill up only when they must. That's a suggestion President Bush echoed at the White House this afternoon.