Florida, Carolinas fuel supplies rebounding from storm

OREANDA-NEWS. October 11, 2016. Nearly one-third of Florida's gas stations ran out of fuel before and during Hurricane Matthew, but suppliers should have operations back to normal by tomorrow.

About 10pc of Florida's 7,000 stations are still out of fuel today, said Ned Bowman, executive director of the Florida Petroleum and Marketers and Convenience Store Association.

Florida depends almost entirely on marine deliveries of fuel and has no interstate products pipelines. Florida ports have been reopened and all ports are resuming normal fuel delivery schedules, state officials said.

"Everything is returning to normal," Bowman said. "People are coming back in to fill their thanks."

Hurricane Matthew reached a category 4 rating and killed hundreds in Haiti before sweeping up the US east coast late last week. The storm stayed offshore as it moved up Florida's east coast, causing less damage than anticipated.

By the time it moved into the Carolinas it was a weakening category 2 storm with sustained winds under 111 mph, according to AccuWeather. It made landfall as a category 1 hurricane on 8 October just southeast of McClellanville, South Carolina.

In South Carolina, only 20-25 stations ran out of fuel, as a regional plan went into motion to set up refueling areas and assure tankers could get to them, said executive director of the South Carolina Petroleum Marketers Association Michael Fields. The plan was developed after problems in previous disaster situations.

There are some areas of the state that are still inaccessible and without power today, but "it could have been a lot worse," Fields said.

North Carolina was not having a problem with fuel supply, but rather with delivery because widespread flooding is causing road closures from Raleigh eastward to the coast.

"We did not expect flooding on this scale" as the hurricane came much farther north than anticipated, said executive director of the North Carolina Petroleum and Convenience Marketers association Gary Harris.

The power grid was hit hard in North Carolina, so many gasoline stations lost power, he said. The association told members to keep some fuel in their tanks so that the tanks would not float with the floodwaters, a major problem during Hurricane Floyd in 1999, which also caused widespread flooding. So far, no such problems had been reported, Harris said.

North Carolina has also waived hours-of-service (HOS) restrictions for truck drivers delivering fuel to help with deliveries. The waiver is effective 6 October through 6 November.