We’re running on fumes.
More than half the service stations in the city can’t sell gas because they’re sold out or have no power — and that’s triggering frantic searches by desperate drivers and people who rely on gas-powered electric generators.
Queens is virtually dried up. Driver Tony Ayala, 36, set out from his Howard Beach home yesterday and searched 17 stations all over the borough in vain.
“I’m not sure who to blame. Do you blame the oil plants, the government?” he asked.
And it won’t get better for days.
“We really have no idea when we’ll have gas. The distributor is saying hopefully next week, Monday or Tuesday,” said assistant manager Sano Saher at a BP station in College Point.
As many as 75 percent of stations in the city are not able to sell, said Ralph Bombardiere of the New York State Association of Service Stations.
He blamed power problems at gas-delivery terminals that normally supply the city. “For the individual stations, if they have product, they don’t have power — and many, if they have power, they don’t have product,” he said.
In the Clifton section of Staten Island, one customer waiting on foot with empty gas cans was stunned when cops told him only gas for cars would be sold — and that if he protested, he’d be arrested for disorderly conduct.
The NYPD later insisted that was not department policy and cops would stop a customer on foot only from jumping the line.
The mere rumor of gas had people scurrying. A Facebook reference to gas available at Liberty Gas in Gravesend, Brooklyn, created a four-block line of cars by lunchtime — and gas was still not available there by 9 p.m. due to “computer glitches,” managers said.
In Queens, a man was arrested after he jumped a line to buy gas and then pulled a gun on someone behind him who protested.
Taxi-fleet owners may yank their cabs off the street. “Some garage owners are telling us that their cabdrivers can’t go out if they can’t gas up,” said TLC Commissioner David Yassky.
It got so bad that when US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood prepared to visit the city yesterday to inspect Hurricane Sandy’s impact, his staff asked the Port Authority to refuel the four or five cars in his convoy because of fears they’d run out of gas.
The demand for generators is also outrunning supply. A hardware store in Bayside, Queens, has sold out and has placed hundreds of orders, said owner Phil Pavich. “We’re trying to get them from anywhere we can — Nebraska, Wisconsin, West Virginia,” he said. “It’s unbelievable.”
Additional reporting by Doug Auer, Jennifer Fermino, Chuck Bennett, Carl Campanile and Philip Messing