quote:
The pipeline break is in Shelby County, south of Birmingham. This pipeline comes from the refineries carrying gasoline to the distributor. Virtually all gas for Georgia and the East Coast passes through it. Every available gas tanker is filling up at a terminal near Tuscaloosa and going east and north.
This is what is slowing down the delivery and driving up the price. Pipeline should be repaired by the weekend and all back to normal soon after.
Our bait and tackle shop is limiting all to 15 gallons.

That's interesting: a large water main break is typically repaired in the same day unless it's part of a bigger issue like multiple breaks due to earthquakes or flooding/erosion from hurricanes such as along barrier islands. One would think the oil companies have spare piping sections to replaced the damaged piping.

And I've seen 48" high-pressure water mains that burst alongside interstates that took out the entire road pavement and the side of a small mountain beside the roadway in a matter of minutes. They got repaired in under 24 hours. People need drinking water, but gosh they need gas too.....

I've always been mighty suspicious of oil companies ever since Katrina damaged oil refineries along the Gulf of Mexico. Prices shot up and stayed up. The executives said prices would be high because production was cut due to the damage. I guess the damage never got repaired. Anyway, the major US oil companies reported all-time record profits the next year. Go figure.....