Middle Tennesseans are still dealing with the effects of Hurricane Ike, which hit the Texas coast more than a week ago. Over the weekend, many gas stations were still without fuel.
At a gas station on Nashville’s east side, right by LP Field, the line was about 30 cars deep. Lines were like that or worse all over the city at the remaining stations which still have fuel. Many stations have taken the price numbers off signs or put yellow caution tape around pumps to warn drivers there’s no gas.
Jhesi Boyer was out filling her car while her distraught Chihuahua barked in the background. Boyer says her low-fuel light came on the day before.
“So I’ve only been looking for a couple of days but I had my mom on the computer, she found a website where they were keeping an update of where there was gas so she’s been calling me and giving me updates.”
Boyer was also filling a gas can for her boss who’d run out of fuel. At the same station, several security guards were running around trying to direct traffic, while several customers accused others of cutting.
Bart Butler owns Rock Solid Security. He says Exxon Mobile, contracted his firm to control crowds at eight of its Nashville stations, including the Shelby Avenue one.
“We were called by the company based on the gas shortage to make sure people stayed in line and weren’t breaking line and acting correctly.”
He expects to continue working with Exxon until the fuel supply returns to normal.
Middle Tennessee gets its gas through the Colonial pipeline which runs from the Gulf to New York. The pipeline was shut down because of reduced supply from the hurricane. It reopened early last week, but gas has been flowing at a reduced capacity. AAA, the auto services company, is reporting that between 50 and 60 –percent of Nashville stations were without gas. AAA expects some outages to continue through the end of this week.
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