Residents of Atlanta apartments have surely noticed the gas shortage in the area. The threat of Hurricane Ike is mostly to blame. Many Gulf Coast refineries shut down production as a precaution before the storm, even if they were not damaged, because of power outages. Ike destroyed at least 10 oil and gas platforms and damaged pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico.
The gas supplies were low but Atlanta motorists made a bad situation worse by panicking. People started topping off their tanks at every opportunity, in fear of all Atlanta gas pumps running dry. With supplies becoming so limited, gas prices surged in Georgia to the highest of anywhere in the Southeast.
Where Does Atlanta Get Its Gas Supply?
The Colonial Pipeline, the nation’s largest, is the major source of gasoline in Georgia. The Alpharetta-based company normally carries an average of 100 million gallons of gasoline and other refined petroleum every day, but this pipeline is running short due to a lack of supply from the refineries.
Normally Georgia gas providers are required to sell only low sulfur clean burning fuel but now the federal government has relaxed rules in an effort to ease the gas shortage in the Southeast. This means Atlanta will soon have all the gas it needs, so Atlanta motorists should rest assured that everything will be returning to normal.
Preventing Gas Gouging
Georgia’s Governor Sonny Perdue signed an order activating the state’s price gouging statute to protect consumers from unreasonable price increases for gasoline because of Hurricane Ike. You can help. If you find any gas gouging in the Atlanta metro, call the Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs at (404) 651-8600 or (800) 869-1123.
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