Pre-Rita gas hoarding
September 22nd, 2005
As Texas braces itself for Hurricane Rita and millions of people evacuate, the chief concern of most Montrealers seems to be… the price of gas.
Sparked by fears of price hikes due to Rita, and by a few stations who started raising prices in anticipation, people began panicking, and topping up and hoarding gas. Traffic was a nightmare on the way home, as people lined up by the dozens at every gas station where the price was still reasonable, causing gridlock and – paradoxically – the consumption of even more gas. Even as I type this, a symphony of honking is ringing in my ears, from cars who are stuck on my street because of a lineup for a gas station two blocks away.
Ironically, today was car-free day in Montreal.
Seriously, though, here’s hoping and praying for the safety of everyone in the affected areas, and that Rita doesn’t cause the kind of devastation that Katrina did.
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Well see, there’s the hypocrisy right there; where’s the concern for the environment when they’re giving away cars in Montreal?
Some people are just nuts! Of course, some service station owners are even worse if any of these claims of price-gouging pan out.
I’m here in England for a bit where people here went ‘mad’ about gas as well. Some’one’ threatened massive blockades of the refineries to protest the price of gas in the UK (just under one pound a gallon), the media freaked out about anticipated massive shortages of gas, and people started queueing up (lining up in ‘British’) like well behaved sheep. The smart sheep waited until after rush hour to fill up and this went on for a couple of days.
Needless to say that no one showed up to protest, but few still thought that they should queue up for hours at a time to make sure their cars were topped up.
Conclusion: the media is guilty.
Don’t you mean per litre? We’re paying the equivalent of $5.50Cdn. per Imperial gallon right now!!! (Vancouver, Canada)
I WISH we WERE only paying a pound per gallon…
You know what? Maybe it was litres. That country is so whacked. Besides the fact that they can’t speak English properly, they still use miles to measure distance and weigh people in ’stones’. How much do you weigh? Oh, about 12 and a half stone.
(I didn’t say anything about driving on the wrong side of the road either)