Damn that Hurricane Ike!

[NC Steve]

Here's what burns my *ss. Per Wikipedia,

"Colonial Pipeline, headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, delivers a daily average of 100 million gallons (398 million liters) of gasoline, home heating oil, aviation fuel and other refined petroleum products to communities and businesses throughout the South and Eastern United States. Colonial consists of more than 5,500 miles (8,800 km) of pipeline, originating at Houston, Texas, and terminating at New York harbor. The pipeline travels through the coastal states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey. Branches from the main pipeline also reach Tennessee.

The main lines are 40 and 36 inches in diameter, with one primarily devoted to gasoline and the other carrying distillate  products such as jet fuel, diesel fuel, and home heating oil. The pipeline connects directly to major airports along the system. Fifteen associated tank farms store more than 1.2 billion gallons of fuel and provide a 45 day supply for local communities.

Following the passage of hurricane Ike in September 2008, this pipeline was operating at a severely reduced capacity due to a lack of supply from refineries that had closed, causing gasoline shortages across the Southeast."

I literally ride over this pipeline twice a day, and the local tank farm holds many millions of gallons of various fuels, mostly gasoline. Yet there are at least a dozen service stations within eyesight of the compound that are out of gas!
I expect any day now to read about some Joe Exxon station owner who gets busted trying to cross the fence with a drill and a siphon hose...

[msbuck]

Looks like Western North Carolina is the hardest hit...

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1231716.html

[nhmaf]

Wow, I feel educated now - I had no idea about that pipeline system !    We don't have such extensive pipelines up here, except for a pipe system that runs from near Portland, Maine across Maine, NH, VT, and Quebec up to Montreal.  The first pipeline was built there during WWII so that tankers didn't have to travel up and around lining up  into the St Lawrence river to get to the refineries in Montreal - too many U-boats in the North Atlantic, you know.   It is still used for piping natural gas and
crude oil, but no gasoline or jet fuel.