On tuesday the gas price around here was $1.49 a gallon at the supercenter that also sells gas. Everybody got in line to fill up and created a chaos. Other places started price gouging up to $5.00 per gallon. Today at the same supercenter they got a new shipment of gas in and the price is now $1.39 per gallon.

I didn't get in line on tuesday cause I had just filled up the day before. Now I'm glad I didn't.

-- r.h. in okla. (rhays@sstelco.com), September 13, 2001

Answers

On Tuesday the gas prices jumped here also. It was soon discovered that it is against the law in Kansas to do that. The seller can be fined as much as $5000 per customer to sell at inflated prices. Needless to say the prices are back to normal and some gas stations have a lot of explaining to do.

-- Tom S. (trdsshepard@yahoo.com), September 14, 2001.

Hi,,prices on gas are normal here in Western Montana,,thank goodness! I was getting upset at the thoughts of the rumored price hike,,$4.oo a gal. We were talking about how to get to work,,stay at job site, etc. Then an authority came on TV and said any gas price hikes had no connection with what happened in NY on Tue. I was getting angry by then,,to think that the gas station owners would charge their customers such high prices,,,at the first sign of a crisis...Anyway, those that did put prices up,,brought them back down real quick,,,,

-- Patsy, MT (cozyhollow-gal@care2.com), September 14, 2001.

They can't charge that much if nobody buys it. Laws of supply and demand. It's kind of hard to blame the station owners for it all. I heard gas stations were being overrun with people. I had friends in KS and IL tell me that not only were people in a panic at gas stations, but grocery stores also. It was strange as it didn't happen here yet my friends were in near crisis in the midwest. In fact, it was alot quieter than usual here. It only takes a few people to start a panic and easily leads eventually hysteria. You have to blame the people that were paying $5 a gallon also. What happened in d.c. and nyc didn't surprise me at all. I'm concerned but I've expected these things to happen, and expect it more often in the future.

-- Dave (somebody@somewhere.com), September 14, 2001.

Here in hurricane country, we take a dim view of price gouging - it ain't happening. I can just see all the locals getting together & discussing retail practices with gas station owners who were doing that. Wouldn't be a pretty sight. In a community where everyone knows everyone else, that's just not done. I went & got gas coz I needed to get gas & prices had not changed, no surprise. When Hurricane Andrew visited, the local grocery store mgr at Winn Dixie opened the doors & had a major sale. His philosophy was let's eat it while we can, rather than pitch it, being as none of us had electricity, unless it was solar or you had a generator. When Hurricane Georges blasted the place, I have no idea how much food nor how many pallets of water they gave away. Lots. More like how it should be done, IMHO........Kt.

-- K-K-K-Katie (yarnspinnerkt@hotmail.com), September 14, 2001.

I just don't understand what moved people to rush to the gas station after hearing about the tragedy. Even if the gas prices did rise, what good is one tank of cheap gas really going to do you?

-- Tracy Brock (tbrock@splitrocktel.net), September 15, 2001.

At the same time we mourned for our fellow Americans and our Country, we were shamed by a few greedy American low-lifes who felt the need to take advantage of the situation.

My mom said she would never buy gas from a station owned by a middle eastern person. Hard to do here in So. Cal. I reminded her that it wasn't middle easterners that jacked the prices up to $5.00 a gallon, it was good 'ol boy Americans. We have about 8 - 10 stations in our town and the price never budged off $1.60.

-- jennifer (schwabauer@aol.com), September 15, 2001.

Well, Dave - if I hadn't paid $5 a gallon, I wouldn't have gotten home. Period. I was on empty. No checks, no credit cards accepted, cash only at most of the stations. When I went in town to my doctor's appointment, there were no lines; when I came out, less than an hour later (3pm) it was chaos with long lines and longer waits. In our tiny little home town (not where I got gas, by the way) the police shut the 2 stations down after the lines were blocking traffic on a main highway; and after one man threatened to go home and get a gun when they told him they had run out of the cheaper gas. People had 7 and 8 gas cans in the back of their cars, filling them all up.

We did get a refund the next day - down to where we ended up paying $1.25 a gallon, and the owners of the stations are in deep doo-doo at this time. As I went past on my way to and from work, I noticed that those stations that had gouged on Tuesday did not appear to have any business on Thursday and Friday - guess maybe people's memories aren't as short as I'd been thinking.

I saw no signs of panic at the grocery stores here in E. Central Illinois; and I did stop and pick up groceries on my way home from the doctor. I usually shop only once a month; and since I had to come to town anyway, I had already planned to stop on my way home and shop. I did get a good laugh in the checkout line though, when a lady looked at my cart and said "Do you know something we don't know?" Six cans of coffee, 48 rolls of TP, 2 cases of tuna and a case of salmon, large box of dry milk, 4 2# pkgs each of spagetti and macaroni, 2 3# pkgs of American Cheese, 4 lg jars each of peanut butter and honey, several pounds of kidney and great northern beans, 6 boxes of brownie mix and sugar and flour; among other items. I said "Umm, I shop once a month, the coffee was on sale, I have three bathrooms, I'm getting ready to can some bean soup, I have a boy in the service who likes peanut butter cookies and I've got a bad knee and don't like to shop in the winter on the snow and ice?" We got into a nice conversation about what you can tell about folks from the items in their shopping carts; and it got me to thinking how the shopping carts of we homesteaders probably are quite different from those of ordinary consumers. Wal-Mart seemed to still have a good stock of items that I would be tempted to buy in a panic situation, like batteries, lamp oil, lamps, flour, sugar, cornmeal, dry milk and canned meat and fish; so I don't think anyone was running to hoard such items.

-- Polly (tigger@moultrie.com), September 15, 2001.