And it gets more Crazy.
posted by Ben Engebreth on 08.31.2005
Katrina, tragically, has inflicted tons of pain on the people living around the gulf coast. Whatever we suffer in higher gas prices is inconsequential in comparison to what they've gone through and likely still have to go through. However, since gas prices have for so long been a topic of this blog, I think it's alright to speak about the effects of the hurricane on future prices.
CNN is reporting that prices will likely hit $4 across the country in the weeks ahead. Four bucks seems like a pretty big pop in the national average to me, but I can see some places hitting that point for a short time. I just got an email from my brother, for example, about gas shortages in Georgia due to the supply pipelines that provide the city being shut down due to hurricane damage. He says that he's seeing gas prices in the $3-$5 range already and has heard of prices as high as $10! This will certainly (hopefully) be one of those temporary shocks that rights itself quickly when conditions return to normal, but it's not called a price shock for no reason. Evidently, the lines for gas are huge and there is a bit of (orderly) panic in the air.
I wish I had a bit better marketing skills and I could suggest to a larger audience of people that they take up carpooling now to help manage the price hikes. It would be great to walk away from this with a little bit of publicity for carpooling and gas conservation.
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.pooln.com/blog/MT/mt-tb.cgi/6