Walk-ups at a Hess gas station in Copiague Saturday, Nov. 3 filled cans and containers of all shapes and dimensions with fuel for their cars and generators, including buckets, water jugs and antifreeze bottles. (Christopher Twarowski/Long Island Press)
At the Dunkin Donuts on Pulaski Road in Kings Park, where many are still without lights, the line was out the door this morning and customers were wearing pajamas.
A woman in a business suit squeezed in and yelled, “Is this a gas line or a coffee line!?!”
There’s not much of a difference between the two around here. Just across the street a line of cars wrapped around Pulaski as residents waited for the next gas delivery at the Hess station down the block. And while officials say the gas is coming, looking at the lines, it seems hard to believe.
But it’s not that the gas isn’t there in many cases. Patricia, a Kings Park resident, had a half tank of gas in her car and hasn’t had much trouble finding gas over the past few days, but was waiting on the 50-plus car line anyway.
“They say not to panic, but the fact is I’m going to need gas and this is the shortest line around,” she says. “I might as well take advantage of it while I can, I don’t have power anyway, at least waiting here on the line I’m warm.”
And now, as the temperatures keep dropping, more and more residents are filling up gas cans to power portable generators to keep their homes heated.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday that while progress has been made in getting more gasoline and fuel shipments to affected areas, the shortage would continue to be an issue for “a number of days.” He urged people to stay off the roads if they could and not to panic.
But here in Kings Park, people aren’t just filling up their cars, some have four or five gas cans with them, too.
“They are actually compounding the situation and making it worse,” said Cuomo, who says officials are monitoring the situation daily, but it’s a situation that requires patience, which is wearing thing for a lot of Long Island residents these days.
So, at what point do things go back to normal?
“No one can give us a good answer to that question because there are a lot of variables,” he said.
One of those variables was addressed last week when the Port of New York, which was shut down to commercial shipping traffic, including petroleum supplies that affect New York City and Long Island, was reopened on Thursday.
“The port is open, the backlogged barges can begin to dock and gas and will begin to flow into New York again,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer.
But for now, whether it’s due to lack of deliveries, public panic or a little bit of both, officials say only time will fix this problem.
“Now is not the time to be using the car if you don’t need to,” Cuomo said. “Now is not the time to be hoarding fuel.”
