Good job, Observer. Keep it up!

Where were the cars?

They're all here, in my town. Gah. The Monster Truck Rally continues.

(excellent post, btw)

That sounds nice. I wish we'd have a gas shortage here. Then maybe I'd be able to ride my bike without fear of being killed or having things thrown at me.

I live in WNC also and have noticed both calmer and more frantic traffic. Just depends where the needle points on their gas gauge.

There has only been gas shipped to our station across the street 2 times in 15 days, a normally very busy gas-up. It has made the intersection a traffic jam as I walk to the grocery store attached. The local Asheville news had a piece about all the automotive stores being out of gas cans and siphons. People are siphoning gas from lawn mowers and less efficient vehicles to get to work. The one Hess gas station that seems to be getting shipments daily is supposedly going all the way to Willmington NC to get it, a 5 hour trip each way. Once a shipment shows up, it is cleaned out in about 2 hours.

Me, I am an unemployed civil engineer, I have no where I need to go with my little car with a full tank of gas. I can walk or ride my bike most places. My wife and I were planning a little near-cation to some things in North Carolina. Now even a short trip to nearby state or national park for hiking seems futile. I am surprised things are going as well as they are, no major fights or police actions yet.

There is an article about people starting to car-pool and such for work and of course are still running out of gas. The newspaper has made attempts to tell the public which stations have gas. By the time it is posted, and people figure it out, the station runs out, or their car runs out waiting.

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080924/NEWS01/...

My saga went like this:
Last Sunday before last(14th) we lost power at about 9:30 AM..By we I mean most of western Ky. At least 4 counties were shutdown. The remains of Ike came up the Mississippi valley and totalled a huge number of trees. Not mch rain but the power never came back on for my immediate area for 4 very long days. Many lost all their frozen and refrigerated foodstuffs. We lived in the dark for all those days.

I worked on several large generators in order to help many neighbors and just barely managed to save most of my freezer contents.

Then this last Saturday I had to go with my son to Raleigh, NC..hitch up a 6x12 uhaul trailer and load many of his and my wifes belongings and haul them back to Ky.

Little did we know about the run on gas and the crisis in the southern states.

It was like a trip thru apocalypse. Weird and scary.Reminded me of 1973 somewhat only more personal.

As we pulled out of Raleigh at midday on Sunday we had a full tank. We soon found out what chaos was all about. No gas in Asheville. Finally found one station with very slow pumps and huge lines. Managed to finally get topped off. They were soon out. Took one guy over an hour to get 15 gals.

Then on the road but wiser. We made it to Knoxville. Passing stranded autos as we went along the highway. No gas in Knoxville.Driving on and now almost on fumes we found one station in the boonies with enough to get us a start towards Nashville. Guess what?

Nashville was closed down far as gas went. We managed to get up to Clarksville , Tn just about the time we were running out.

My son was aghast and now he realized that what I had been saying all these months and even years was finally coming true.

The financial situation hit him right in the head. He has a masters in Accountancy and is a CPA and also works in DC. He was shocked..shell shocked.

I knew it was just the past catching up with us. I said "we drive far as we can..then we stop while we still have a reserve for in the morning when someone fills a stations tanks."

I was just hoping that we didn't lose it along the way.

The CB was strangely silent. At 5 AM Monday morning we pulled into the farm.

The huge trees were still being chainsawed up. A neighbors brand new pole barn was a total loss. Others escaped damage but they will now look differently at our coming situation. There is a huge amount of anger out here. You see all our lineman and cherry pickers were sent south to Texas. No one apparently was capable of following a storm track and judging the obvious!!!!

Gas is now available but the previous weeks there was fights and altercations in the two small towns in my county. Something I thought would not happen but it did and it will again and again.

Airdale-nothing can stop what will be.....
What can be said then about the utter folly of those we trusted to govern us...and what has been done to the gifts of God of the Heavens and this once good green Earth?

Slightly off topic, but related to societal changes...

I run a gardening maintenance business. I decided to test whether people were really making big changes in preparation for rising food costs. So I put an ad in the local paper, part of which offered to do vegetable gardens. There are no other ads running which offer vege gardens from the 30 ads, so I thought I stood a good chance of generating some good business. Response from the ad was incredible, however, only 1 person requested I do a vege garden.

Where I live is the very wealthy Northern beaches of Sydney. Property values are so high that most people are really only concerned with maintaining the value of their homes I concluded.

On a side note, a customer of mine is a professor of geology, so I asked him what his take on peak oil is. Interesting conversation followed and he said almost certainly it is real. Not that I needed to ask of course. I told him to have a look at this website.