Out of Gas

Have you ever watched the movie The Mummy? Remember the scene where the flesh-eating scarabs clean a human body down to the bones? I was reminded of that scene while driving around Nashville this weekend, except instead of bones being sucked dry, it was gas stations. By Sunday afternoon, there was not a gas station in the entire city with any gasoline.

Here's what happened: Nashville is at the end of a pipeline coming from Houston, TX. When the hurricane came through Texas, Houston lost power. So the refinery wasn't sending any gas through the pipeline. It took a while to affect us, but this weekend, Nashville ran out of gas. Now, normally, when the demand far exceeds the supply, the price should go up. That's basic economics. However, because of "price gauging" laws and fear of public outrage, the gas stations didn't dare raise their prices. So instead of everyone being able to get a few gallons in their cars to make it another couple of days (albeit at a higher price) some people filled their tanks completely while others are out of luck. Absurd.

By the way, if anyone's a Firefly fan, did you catch the reference in the title?