Wednesday, August 20, 2003

From the outside, it does not appear that people are taking the Phoenix fuel shortage terribly seriously. They should be. Seeing a key ingredient to the American lifestyle suddenly dry up is really, really spooky. You don't think of the all pervasive way into which cheap, accessible fuel is seamlessly integrated into the fabric of everyday American life

It's not that gas ISN'T available, because it is, in very small quantities. The small quantities provide a sense of unease instead of the throw-your-arms-in-despair sort of thing that would probably make people actually behave. There are lines for gas. Lines for freaking gas! I don't remember the shortages of the 70's , and I wasn't around during gas rationing in WWII, so the context of a very wealthy city, suddenly choked of it's fuel supply, is a little strange. But it's not a crisis, and it hasn't been painted in the stars and stripes yet, forcing folks to do their best to work with the situation.

In order to avoid the lines, I filled up last Friday. But the lines are still there, and by sometime on Friday or Saturday, I will need to fill up again. I can't wait until the light comes on, because I might run out of gas looking for a gas station which actually has gas. I can't run any errands because that would burn gas, and I can't even go out to eat, because then we'd be burning gas.

People talk about it in the halls at my office. THey've been getting up at 4:00am to find gas stations without lines and hot tempers.

But we all live too far apart to car pool, and we some of us live in neighborhoods which make it impossible to actually just walk to get to the store. There are no buses where I live. No alternative means of transportation.

And this is just from a minor burp in the usual supply.

This isn't a nice blackout in New York where everyone quits working and everybody stays home and finishes the tub of ice cream before it melts. You can go get ice cream, if you want to burn gas to get it, but be careful with that gauge, because you can't skip work or be late to work because of gas issues. Nothing has slowed down or really been checked by the gas situation. In fact, people are following gas trucks around town to see where they're going to deliver their tank loads.

An air of paranoia is becoming prevalent.

The ten second spot Phoenix is getting on headline News doesn't begin to do the situation justice, because it is not just long lines at the pumps. Everyday life has a cloud hanging over it uncertainty. There's an uncertainty of freedom, of a threat of immobility, and nobody really knows when the damn thing is going to be over.

I've heard anecdotal evidence of flared tempers, but it's a matter of time before something genuinely bad happens. Before a car stalls on the freeway and causes a disaster, before fights break out at a gas station, before something goes wrong with one of hundreds of fuel trucks working overtime to fill the pumps...

It's a spooky situation. In order to avoid burning extra gas sitting in traffic, every day this week I've left after 6:00pm. And they say they don't know when things will get better.

I've got half a tank left, maybe a little more.

No comments: