Plan ahead...

According to an article I found on WBIR.com:

Filling stations sold four times more gasoline than on a normal weekend as Hurricane Ike made landfall in Texas, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said.

These extra purchases made by people who believed that we would have a shortage resulted in exactly the shortage that was feared (as well as very high prices on what fuel was available).

Further in the article:

"It's like right before a storm when everybody rushes to the store to buy milk and bread," said Jeremy Heidt, a spokesman for TEMA, which has been monitoring the shortage. "There's no way the store has enough milk and bread for everyone who wants to buy it. They are planning their purchases based on what consumers typically do."

This event (the collective fear that we would run short on gasoline) was far from a local "disaster", so imagine how much worse it will be during a disaster. The spokesman for TEMA mentions food and suggests that stores only care enough for a typical day/week.

So my take-away from this is two things.

1. If a disaster strikes, many supplies will be unavailable.


2. Plan ahead. Have some gasoline stored up. Imagine how much you would have saved over the last week if you had enough fuel on hand to drive approximately 200 miles. (I pick 200 miles because that seems like a reasonable distance to have to travel to get out of harms way if a disaster were to strike). Not only gasoline, but food also.