Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
The Great Gas Run of 2005 continues unabated across Ashvegas tonight. A quick tour around town showed dozens of cars lined up at stations waiting to fill up.
But before I go too far with the fear-mongering, like WLOS did last night (to a great public disservice), let me add that I didn’t sense a great fear. And whether people want to believe it or not, there was plenty of gas to be had. On my tour of Merrimon and Patton avenues, I saw a number of stations with few people at the pumps, but still open and ready to do business, albeit at $3.10 a gallon for regular.
The Shell station just down the hill from Greenlife was jampacked with autos spilling into the street. Same for the Hot Spot further north in the Woodfin area, just off 19/23. Also, the Hot Spot and nearby Enmark just down Leicster Highway were doing landoffice business tonight about 10 p.m.
Why? Because people are stupid and greedy. Relax. There’s no need.
Yes, it will take a while for service to get back to normal. But there’s plenty of gas out there. The Colonial pipeline that serves the Spartanburg terminal, where tankers get their loads to distribute to our gas stations here, is up and working at 25 percent capacity, according to reports I’ve seen.
That did little to ease the rumor mill, fed by our local talk radio dumbasses who reported every stupid thing a caller reported. “The guvment is shuttin’ down gas stations at noon. No public sales of gasoline after 5 p.m.”
Shit like that. And like I said, WLOS did a great public disservice yesterday by not reporting the story and simply stoking the public’s base fears. Usually, WLOSers lack of reporting does little harm. This time, it did.
Friends called me to tell of fights at the pumps. Of people driving up in a gianormous Excursion, filling up, then opening the hatch and filling up five oil drums more full of gasoline. Of gas prices changing so fast that attendents couldn’t keep up, so they just put up a “3” and stopped with the rest.
Now CNN is reporting $6-a-gallon gasoline in Atlanta. What will it be in Ashvegas in the morning?
I don’t know. But chill out.
which is what we were saying … the local news caused an unnecessary panic. WLOS was broadcasting from gas stations with long lines and were causing the ‘easiest influenced’ to run out and get in line while ‘there’s still gas available’.
so ‘they’ (those who can’t think for themselves) paid $3.69 plus per gallon instead of waiting until this week when prices are considerably reduced ($3.11/gal when i filled up yesterday).
what WLOS should have been reporting is that local gas stations were taking advantage of the Katrina situation to hike their prices up and gouge everyone who needed to fill up that week. did anyone hear them saying, ‘if you don’t need to fill up right now, wait until next week when prices will be lower’?
asheville area gas stations always raise prices over the labor day weekend. katrina just gave them an excuse to do it a week earlier.
Yeah, looks like the collective “we” brought this on ourselves. If everyone had just continued on their regular gas buying pattern, everything would have been fine. But, noooo, everybody had to run out and fill up all their cars and esuvees and spare gas cans all on the same day.
Even if the pipelines and refineries were all functioning perfectly, that would still have caused stations to run out of gas. The system’s just not designed (nor can it be, I would think) to handle the amount of gas consumption that’s normally spread over a week or more, to be all concentrated in one day.
And shame on everyone who blames WLOS for all that goes wrong in WNC. Sure, it’s fun to pick on them, because they’re out there in plain view and make an easy target, but the rest of us need to take responsbility for our own actions.
WLOS didn’t cause the “panic-run.” We all did, by listening to WWNC, or watching WLOS or CNN, or reading the Citizen-Times or some blogger’s opinons, or observing whichever media outlet — in isolation and without a hint of common sense. Or, more likely, from not observing firsthand -any- of those outlets, which actually did a pretty fair job of trying to counter the rumors with fact.
Seems most of this little panic was from people who “heard it from my dad who heard from someone he works with that they said on ‘the news’ that the government was shutting down all the gas pumps at noon.” Now that’s a good source, and certainly justifies all the scorn heaped on WLOS (et. al.) for our own collective ignorance.
i was coming home from work last night and saw all the cars lining up at the gas stations in weavervegas. i hadn’t seen the evening news, but i was SURE WLOS had caused the panic-run. such doofusses! shame on everyone who believes everything they say.
Thanks for the superior reporting and analysis, Ash–here and on my blog.
The Merrimon Ave. BP (near Coleman) still has gas today, although the Enmark, usually the most popular fill-up spot in North Asheville, is eerily quiet.
Unfortunately I’ll have to come to WLOS’s defense on this one. Susan Mundy did a live report on the gas crunch yesterday from Asheville on the noon news.The gist of it was not to panic, that gas would be flowing again in a few days. WLOS carried a live broadcast with the Mayor and council members on the evening news also. Fox News reported $5/gallon gas in Mauldin last night, and the governor of SC is going after those who gouge on prices.
LONWUFF
I think that many factors are to blame for the panic regarding the media! WLOS certainly takes part of the cake, along with the rest of the media in WNC. The problem is real reporting. If people here is Asheville think WLOS is the problem, they need to check out other TV markets…..its not much better. The decision-makers in TV news today have little or no experience in reporting. To tell this story the right way, WLOS would have needed about 3 minutes of air time is a PKG. They don’t get that kind of time. Its all about story count!
WLOS news is run like a country taken over by a despot. Plus all the idiot employees stand there with their arms raised to Hitler, despite the disservice to the viewer. It’s a sad sad joke. When will advertisers take a note and a stand?
Who really is in control?