Gray’s Sunoco, Palm Beach’s only gas station, opened today for the first time since Hurricane Irma’s outer bands swept the island Sunday and into early Monday morning.
The station, 340 S. County Road, will sell gas until 5 p.m. Tuesday and plans to be open 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday. Access to the island now is still restricted to Palm Beach residents — along with business owners and their employees — at police checkpoints on the bridges and coastal road.
“I got in a load (of fuel) at 5:30 p.m. yesterday afternoon,” owner Richard Gray said Tuesday afternoon.
Much of the island remains without electricity, but Gray had a generator ready to go Tuesday morning.
The station opened at 7:30 a.m. and pumped gas for an hour before the generator failed. Gray borrowed another generator and reopened later in the morning, he said.
Read more coverage of Hurricane Irma
The station ran out of gas last Wednesday but was refueled in time to fill drivers’ gas tanks on Thursday in preparation for the storm.
Long lines formed Tuesday at gas stations in West Palm Beach and other areas of Palm Beach County, as drivers looking for gas have been frustrated by stations closed because of power outages or lack of fuel.
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