Fuel shortage hits Hurricane Sandy survivors hard
Flickr photo by eschipul.
Staten Island, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens. What do four of the five boroughs of New York City have in common? They are on islands. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the inability to deliver essential supplies like fuel and heating oil has become dire.
According to the American Waterways Operators, 76 percent of the waterborne traffic in the port of New York is petroleum products. The city, along with Nassau and Suffolk Counties, relies on the port for its fuel and heating oil. The port closed October 29. Through the 24/7 efforts of the U.S. Coast Guard and the sailors and technicians aboard the NOAA ship Thomas Jefferson, the port has been opened to traffic for fuel barges.
The Wall Street Journal reports that gasoline shortages are becoming common. Much of the metro New York region remains without power and that includes gas stations. No power, no pumps. The ability for tanker trucks to load and unload fuel has been affected by widespread damage to roads, and the lack of electricity at fuel distribution nodes.
Colonial Pipeline is in the process of restoring service to its terminal in Linden, NJ. The Phillips 66 refinery in Linden remains out of production. One company with 50 gas stations in New Jersey has only three with power.
As of this writing, the Long Island Power Authority is reporting 5,719 electric outages affecting 635,300 customers. Con Edison is showing nearly 500,000 customers in New York City without power. Jersey Central Power & Light reports it has restored electrical power to about forty percent of its customers that lost power due to Hurricane Sandy. Google is providing a map showing the areas with power outages throughout the eastern part of the United States.
the attachments to this post:
2860756432_50537dca16
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 1st, 2012 at 8:40 pm and is filed under Disasters, Disasters, Hurricane Sandy, Original writing, Original writing, Reporting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
