But buying gas in storm-struck areas without electricity will still be a problem
of ConsumerAffairs
There’s possible good news (or possibly nothing) for drivers in New York next time a Hurricane Sandy-level disaster strikes their state: last Saturday, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the creation of a statewide Strategic Gasoline Reserve, in order to "prevent supply gaps during emergencies," as the governor's office press release said. Specifically, in hope of avoiding future gasoline shortages of the sort that made life even harder for the millions of New Yorkers left stranded or without power after Sandy blasted the northeast last October.
But even if New York State had a Strategic Gasoline Reserve in place before Sandy, it’s not certain how much that would have helped. Last November, in Sandy's aftermath, the gas stations that remained open were mobbed by lines of people and/or cars upwards of a mile long, trying to buy gas not just for their vehicles, but for home electrical generators.
When CNNMoney wrote about the long gas lines last November, it spoke with energy analyst Tom Kloza, who noted this:
There's actually plenty of gasoline in the New York harbor area. And all the big storage tanks along the Jersey turnpike, plenty of those are filled with gas. The problem is, without electricity these facilities can't open, and it's very difficult to access the fuel. You see lines after a storm, because people perceive there's no gasoline, when in fact, it's a question of access.
The gas supply is there, it's either underground at stations that have yet to have electricity back on or in New York harbor, in terminals, but one needs electricity to access those terminals.
Hence the problem with the proposed Strategic Gasoline Reserve: despite the countless individual New Yorkers who couldn't get the gas they needed, New York overall never actually ran short of gasoline after Hurricane Sandy. Gas stations didn't shut down for lack of gas, but lack of electricity to power the pumps.
Perhaps a statewide Strategic Emergency Generator Reserve would better serve New York than the gasoline reserve actually being proposed.