Major gas station outages reported in Louisiana after Hurricane Ida

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As of 3:30 p.m. central time, 35.2% of gas stations in Baton Rouge were running out of fuel, according to GasBuddy, an app that tracks fuel prices and demand. Almost 30 percent of New Orleans gas stations were also gas-free, GasBuddy said.

The blackouts were not as severe outside of these large cities. For the entire state of Louisiana, nearly 13% of gas stations are fuel-free, GasBuddy said.

It is important to note that these outages do not include gas stations that cannot serve customers because they are without power, Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told CNN Business in a report. -mail.

In other words, the actual percentage of gas stations that drivers cannot turn to for gasoline is likely higher in areas without electricity.

Experts urged people not to overreact to the devastation Hurricane Ida wreaked on the region’s energy infrastructure. In May, the panic buying of gasoline exacerbated supply problems caused by the six-day shutdown of the Colonial pipeline following a ransomware attack.

Two days after Hurricane Ida hit the Gulf Coast, virtually all of the Gulf of Mexico’s oil production remains offline and at least nine refineries are closed, according to regulators.

“It’s a long-lasting event, if you don’t need fuel urgently, delay purchases for those who are critical and first responders,” De Haan said.

The US Department of Energy said earlier Tuesday that while power outages likely lead to retail gasoline outages, refinery and production shutdowns are not expected to cause “immediate supply problems. “.

De Haan of GasBuddy said the app was tracking outages in Louisiana, but earlier outage numbers were vastly underreported due to a bug in the app that did not prompt the user to make upgrades. up to date.

“The numbers can increase rapidly tonight now that we’ve fixed the bug,” he said.



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