Katrina and Gas Prices?? (off topic)

[CSXrules4eva]

Ok I've got to ask this question to my fellow fourm members since every were I go (now) and every one I meet has been complaing about gas prices going up because of Katrina.

Just the other day I was told by one of my co-workers that because of Katrina the oil companies have decided to jump the prices up by 20 cents for insurance reasons. I thought this was a little outragious considering the fact that 20 cents is a huge figure when you add it to how many people in the world will be paying for fuel. Even raseing it five cents is a big jump. So my question here is why would they decide to raise the prices 20 cents because of Katrina?? At this rate they will raise the prices an additional 10 cents because a twister came through the gulf coast or something that rediculous (spelling). Just yesterday I paid 20 bucks for only 6.2 gals of gas, thats a rip off.

[CopCarSS]

Law of supply and demand. The supply of gasoline has been hampered, and even with higher gas prices, demand doesn't seem to be going away. I'm already seeing a plethora of RV's on the road for the Labor Day weekend. Until Americans figure out that unless demand goes down, prices will remain high.

It's a shame that the market is driven by yuppies who think taking their Hummers, Excursions and Suburbans "off-roading" means driving on a gravel road. My Caprice may not be the best at gas mileage, but I can still get 25 mpg on the highway if I'm really nice.

Of course, I decided that it might be fun to bike to the Colorado Rail Museum this labor day weekend. I take the bus to school. If every American did little things like that, we could lower demand, even with the gas guzzling SUV's that never leave the pavement while transporting 1.3 children.

[Anonymous]

yes, 20 cents would have been nice. here in georgia, gas jumped to up to 6 dollars a gallon. The govoner i heard said the price wasent allowed to go past 4.99 which it was in many places. Today, gas is 3.49 average. its horrible.

[Modelcar]

Everyone should realize we're in never, never land right now with massive disaster disrupting our way of life and down in the diaster area much worse than that....a matter of life and death. So, we're going to see conditions at the gas pump, and in other areas that are completely not normal and won't be for some time....We'll have to rely on our local, state and federal people to do what can be done to get us through and out of this tragedy. We all need to conserve and have a bit of patience each day and in some cases help where we can....Now a campaign of donations is starting to help fund this massive operation and many of us can help by doing our part there too....

[Anonymous]

The gas goes up like that because we are all sheep, and the oil companies know it.
Remember all those oil refineries that got closed down during the clinton years? Well, that is comming back to bite us now.

Thank the tree huggers for at least a portion of this. The enviro concerns closed down a great deal of what would be competition,.. if the refineries were still around today.

[csmith9474]

Looking for any excuse!!!!![V][:O][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!]

[csmith9474]

HMMWV gets blown up in Iraq, gas up .50 cents per gallon. Tornado in Kansas, gas up .30 per gallon. Coal train derails, Gas up .60 cents per gallon. The petrol companies just stated not too long ago that gas prices are not due to crude shortages, but refinery capacity. How many refineries were lost in the storm?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CSXrules4eva

Ok I've got to ask this question to my fellow fourm members since every were I go (now) and every one I meet has been complaing about gas prices going up because of Katrina.

Yesterday I headed up to Portola Railroad Museum to catch the UP 1983, and that steam engine thingy, 3985. I stopped to top off at the Safeway gas station, which is part of the Safeway Super Market, the price was $2.889 spent 6 hours at Portola and came home, again I stopped off at Safeway to fill up, they had jacked the price to
$3.399. Between 10:00 AM and 5:30 PM the price jumped 51 cents a gallon. The clerk told me that they had not received a delivery between those times. Needless to say, I went down the street and paid $2.89 a gallon!

GW Bush said that we should not buy gasoline if we don't need it. Because of that I'm thinking about not chasing the 3985 down the Feather River Canyon tomorrow.

Jim

[Anonymous]

As I understand it, losing New Orleans and surrounding refineries and pipelines directly affects the East and MidWest. The Rockies and West have independent refineries and pipelines so Katrina isn’t the cause of shortages and or price gouging in Portola.

[Anonymous]

I'm with Modelcar on this one. If all I have to do is pay more at the pump than so be it. I still have my home, my car, my family, and my life is ever so normal. I don't want to hear people complaining about gas prices when they still have a car to drive! I'm thankful all I have to worry about is high gas prices. Sure the higher fuel prices lead to higher prices everywhere else, but BIG DEAL! Just take a moment and watch the news and put yourself in the shoes of the people down there. I did that and I burst into tears, I sure wouldn't know where to start after all that. No House, No Car, No Job, No ANYTHING!!! Ok, time to take a deep breath.... But seriously be happy all you have to worry about is paying more. AND.... it's not like we haven't seen higher gas prices coming. Europe and Japan, etc pay way more than we do for gas. I think it will push for alternative fuel source development and implementation much more quickly than it has been going. [soapbox][soapbox][soapbox][:-^]

[bnsfkline]

*** OIL COMPANIES!

Gas Jumped from 2.38 a gallon to 2.99 a gallon in less than 1 hour here!

OH THE HUMANITY!

Lets do what they are doing in the UK, and do a blockaid, or start a orginization

Citizans against Oil Companies. (COAC)

Lets get all the major companies like BNSF, UP, NS, CSX, Amtrak, CP, CN, TFM, FXE and FSU and all the trucking companies and LETS PROTEST!

LETS PUT A CAP ON HIGH GAS PRICES! Talk to your governers or state reps! Flood them with Mail! Lets put an end to high gas prices! They are doing INJUSTICE to the americans. We should not pay more than $1.50 a gallon at most!

1 gallon of gas - 1/2 of the current Min. Wage ($5.15 per hour)

START A REVOLUTION!

(Keeps on ranting....untill a UP cop comes and handcuffs him and is forced to work for UP)

[edbenton]

Right now there are 8 refineries off line and loss of power killed the pumps that pump the gas thru said pipelines. Right now W and *** are laughing all the way to the bank. Bush is only releasing 10 mil barrels from teh SPOR ones days pumping from the gulf. He stayed on vaction 2 days after Katrina hit and still hte only way he has seen the area besides TV is he had AirForce 1 fly over the area at 5000 ft on his way home from the ranch. About 2 months ago FX showed a program named Oil Strom and right now we are feeling the effects of that movie. We are not out of the woods yet by any means. People are now shooting at teh rescue choppers in order to get out of New Orleans. Bodies are being left to rot in the streets. We can invade 2 countries half way across the world BUT WE CAN NOT TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN NATION!! Kind of screwed up priorities .[soapbox][soapbox][banghead][banghead] Sorry about ranting but we knew that sooner or later this was going to happen.

[Anonymous]

The Associated Press
Thursday, September 1, 2005; 5:04 PM

WASHINGTON -- It makes no sense to spend billions of dollars to rebuild a city that's seven feet under sea level, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said of federal assistance for hurricane-devastated New Orleans.

"It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed," the Illinois Republican said

[ndbprr]

Bush is only releasing 10 mil barrels from teh SPOR ones days pumping from the gulf.

That doesn't solve the problem because there is plenty of oil available. The problem is the refineries that are running at 98% and record levels don't have power, need to check all the equipment and pipelines 100% before running again. One poster had it right. The environmentalists have prevented every effort to become independent and drill for more oil at home. The last US refinery built was 40 years ago. You can't process more oil if enough was released to flood New orleans with oil instead of water. Uninformed political opinions are worthless. I also note that the UN that chastised our relief efforts and giving for the tsunami victims have done nothing or offered to help us in any way. A German official said we deserve this. Al Qaeda said Allah was responsible. A pox on them all. And a big pox on the corrupt Louisana and New Orleans officials who have known for years that a hurricane would inflict this kind of damage and obviously only have a one playbook solution. Blame Bush, Republicans and oil companies.

[cherokee woman]

Maybe we should all just get a couple of horses, and a buggy, and go back to
that kind of "horsepower". That way, we wouldn't need to pay their exhorbitant
prices for gasoline. Although, you'd have to have the extra expense for some-
one to behind the horses, to clean up after them (to satisy the environ-
mentalists).[:p][;)]

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by edbenton

Right now there are 8 refineries off line and loss of power killed the pumps that pump the gas thru said pipelines. Right now W and *** are laughing all the way to the bank. Bush is only releasing 10 mil barrels from teh SPOR ones days pumping from the gulf. He stayed on vaction 2 days after Katrina hit and still hte only way he has seen the area besides TV is he had AirForce 1 fly over the area at 5000 ft on his way home from the ranch. About 2 months ago FX showed a program named Oil Strom and right now we are feeling the effects of that movie. We are not out of the woods yet by any means. People are now shooting at teh rescue choppers in order to get out of New Orleans. Bodies are being left to rot in the streets. We can invade 2 countries half way across the world BUT WE CAN NOT TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN NATION!! Kind of screwed up priorities .[soapbox][soapbox][banghead][banghead] Sorry about ranting but we knew that sooner or later this was going to happen.

Please present all the facts in your rant. The President (not W, let's show some respect, wheter you like him or not) was going to go in and do his address from there and was told as well as figured out that it would cause a un-needed use of security and draw the true attention away form the problem. You want to make it sound like he doesn't care, or he is part of the reason the hurricane hit. Also, he lifted or had the EPA lift the blended fuel restrictions. He is only the President, he's not a dictator that says jump and we all say how high. If he has the power you suggest, then we would have privitized Social Security already. Lay the blame where it belongs, greedy corporate america and the stock holders, guess what, that's you and me, we want more money, we want lower prices. Wow, the oil reserve is actually for our military, so let's give it out for folks to go on vacation, fill cars that use more fuel then they need, let people top off their tanks. It's all about me, me, me. What happened to the us in USA???

[Anonymous]

Yet another catastrophe on W’s watch that he isn’t responsible for. The Army Corps of Engineers under W is responsible for flood control and every year W denied the Corps the funds they told him they needed to protect New Orleans.

New Orleans could have been protected from a category 5 hurricane for $2.5 billion according to Army Corps officials.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/national/nationalspecial/01levee.html

[Anonymous]

Normal overall demand for gasoline begins to drop after the Labor Day weekend. As mentioned in above posts, refineries and east/midwest pipelines are down. The head of the American Petroleum Institute reported this yesterday (shown on CSPAN). The only inventory of gas is what's "in the pipelines". With economics, "the tail wags the dog". Cut back on non-essential driving, and slow down to help take pressure off the inventory of gas available.

[Anonymous]

I can see this topic turning ugly now that politics is getting rallied on.

[Anonymous]

I hope people figure out to not rebuild in the storm surge areas, and below sea level areas. Convert the areas to parkland or something else that won't matter so much when the next hurricane hits.

By the way, the current hurricane season lasts into November.

Lastly, mankind is fooli***o think he can go toe to toe with Nature. Decades ago the Mississippi River would have changed course upriver from New Orleans, and flowed SSW to the Gulf had the Army Corp of Engineers et al not constructed dams to prevent it. This would have taken the river away from NO, and would have fouled up the economics there, but we better figure out that Nature wins in the end.

I'll get off my soapbox now.

[Modelcar]

....It is an ugly situation....and plenty of blame to go all around...so we better start pulling together to get this problem fixed and go on with a so called normal life after the fix has been accomplished. But the massive destruction, deaths, misplaced people and problems too extensive to mention is the first business at hand....Hopefully the new numbers of National Guard and equipment arriving today and others will soon start to make a difference....We Americans haven't experienced this kind of tragedy {at home}, quite this extensive for some time....Sure hope we are rising to the occasion....Has anyone heard of help being offered from over Europe and Asia yet.......?

[vsmith]

Someone somewhere thats resposible for coordinating relief efforts has really screwed the pooch on this one, its gotten so bad in NO that the mayor has issued an SOS, literally. 4 days and still FEMA has no command and control set up, many people are still just being left to fend for themselves, is it any wonder they are now armed and mad as hell at anything in a uniform? The Nat Guard has only started to show up in any force. Maybe its just that the overall scale of this disaster completly overwhelmed FEMA, (even though this very scenerio was predicted over a year ago) but someone really needs to be fired after all this.

[Anonymous]

Why would anyone build a city 7 feet under sea level? Why would anyone want to live in a flood zone?

No electricity, no water, no homes, no stores, no workplaces, no nothing.....Thats New Orleans today....

I live in Dallas and already we have had people from the New Orleans area drop by our place of work asking for application forms...

Why are there still people in New Orleans....didn't they get the word New Orleans was supposed to be evacuated, and after the storm didn't they get the word the city is closed?

So many need to work today to pay their upcoming hotel bills, and are searching for apartments in the Dallas area already. Most of them don't think their jobs will be there if they do rebuild New Orleans in a week, which they won't....

Literally, we have over a million refugees going from city to city looking for a new job....and home....and car......

Comparing New Orleans to Venice. In Venice they are raising the height of their city from 1 feet below sea level to 3 feet above....

Anyone in the New Orleans or Louisiana government should be thinking in the same term with New Orleans. If we the American people and government is going to spend billions upon billions rebuilding their fine city, we should rebuild it 3 feet above sea level....

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by donclark

Why would anyone build a city 7 feet under sea level? Why would anyone want to live in a flood zone?

Maybe you should ask people in Amsterdam

[vsmith]

It didnt start off underwater, marsh land is very prone to subsiedance, over the years the land sinks, normally it just floods and becomes wetlands. Now you build a settlement there, the land sinks, floods, so they build a levee to keep the water out. as the years go by the land sinks a couple more inches, so they keep raising the levees. Now in addition to the settling, add silting on the riverbed, the top of the river is now flows even higher so you raise the levees again, see? Add 250 years of this and you end up with a city 20' in some places below sea level. They never imported any soil to raise the city, instead placing all thier faith in a levee system that dates back to horse and buggy days.

[CSXrules4eva]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cherokee woman

Maybe we should all just get a couple of horses, and a buggy, and go back to
that kind of "horsepower". That way, we wouldn't need to pay their exhorbitant
prices for gasoline. Although, you'd have to have the extra expense for some-
one to behind the horses, to clean up after them (to satisy the environ-
mentalists).[:p][;)]

CW I agree with you on this one!! Then you wouldn't have to have insurance and you wouldn't see too many accidents happening on the road. That would be nice. Then you wouldn't have to worry about gas prices too much. Hay then maybe just maybe the prices will drop. Plus I can ride a horse really well. (English)

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by vsmith

It didnt start off underwater, marsh land is very prone to subsiedance, over the years the land sinks, normally it just floods and becomes wetlands. Now you build a settlement there, the land sinks, floods, so they build a levee to keep the water out. as the years go by the land sinks a couple more inches, so they keep raising the levees. Now in addition to the settling, add silting on the riverbed, the top of the river is now flows even higher so you raise the levees again, see? Add 250 years of this and you end up with a city 20' in some places below sea level. They never imported any soil to raise the city, instead placing all thier faith in a levee system that dates back to horse and buggy days.

I also heard that the city water supply is underneath New Orleans and from years and years of pumping it also contributed to the lowering of land.

[Anonymous]

Get ready for RASHNING. The word is now out. Rashin Gas..
Allan.

[Anonymous]

Rationing, Allan

[Anonymous]

vsmith - you have no idea how hard it is to coordinate the relief efforts in response to a disaster of this magnitude. You must think that things happen like they do in the movies, where SWAT teams are showing up 15 minutes after the disaster, and it's all wrapped up in one hour 50 minutes.

It takes days just to get assesments of the infrastructure damage, so routes into the city for supply trucks can be facilitated. It would have helped tremendously if those people had done what they were supposed to do and evacuated the city prior to the event. They didn't do that, and now that's the governments' fault?

The blame lies soley on those who defied orders, and now all we can do is the best we can within a reasonable time frame. We are sending truckloads of bottled water, ice, medicine, etc. to them as fast as is humanly possible, and all we get in return is a collective finger from those typical Democrat voters, which apparently includes you.