A full 24 hours after Hurricane Matthew roared past South Florida, the region was still feeling a gasoline pinch Friday as tanker trucks started rolling again to catch up with the onslaught of pre-storm fill-ups.
The gas supply chain broke when the storm closed Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, which supplies gasoline to 12 counties in Florida, enough gas each day for 400,000 fill-ups, according to the port’s website. The port closed at noon Thursday and reopened Friday.
A steady stream of tankers was leaving the port’s gates by Friday afternoon, but it could take days for the supply chain to mend itself, said AAA Auto Club spokesman Mark Jenkins in Tampa.
“Anytime the port is closed, that supply is pretty much cut off,” Jenkins said. “It’s not so much damage after the storm, it’s the influx of people filling up before.”
Gas stations with shrink-wrapped gas pumps dotted the streets Friday in Broward County, in some cases right across the street from other gas stations open for business. A random drive-by check showed gas prices between $2.29 a gallon and $2.39 a gallon.
A Chevron station a couple miles down U.S. 1 from the Mobil station had been fortunate. Workers there said the station never ran out of gas, and got another delivery Friday afternoon.
The strength of Hurricane Matthew and its large projected impact zone helped touch off a fueling frenzy across Florida in the days before the storm, with reports of long lines for gasoline as far away as Altamonte Springs, said GasBuddy.com analyst Gregg Laskoski
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