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ATLANTA

Across a portion of the South, a hurricane-induced gasoline shortage that was expected to hold out only a few days is dragging into its third part week, and experts say it could persist into mid-October. The Atlanta area has been hit particularly hard, along with Nashville and western North Carolina.

Those lucky enough to find gas are paying more than drivers elsewhere around the country.

“I’ve used up gas just looking for gas,” said Larry Jenkins, a construction worker who pulled his red pickup truck into a Citgo station in Charlotte, N.C., on Monday. The emblem said $3.99 a gallon, but the pumps were closed. Many filling stations in the area have not had aeriform fluid for days.

“Right now, I’ll pay anything for gas,” Jenkins said. “I slip forward’t care if it’s $5 or $6 a four quarts. I strait it.”

The shortage started with the one-two punch of hurricanes Gustav and Ike, what one. shut down refineries along the Gulf Coast. Now, else than sum of two units weeks after Ike, numerous company refineries are still making fuel at reduced levels.

While other parts of the country get gasoline from a variety of domestic and overseas sources, the Southeast relies heavily on two pipelines that carry firing from the Gulf of Mexico. Because the gasoline moves at just 3 to 5 mph, it can seize up to 10 days to reach Atlanta.

A tendency among panicky drivers in the hardest-hit areas to top off their tanks every time they pass an be parted station has solely made matters worse.

“Fuel is coming back into the system, but as soon as it comes in, it’sitting being sucked remote completely by consumers who are afraid the shortage is going to tarry,” said Ben Brockwell of the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J.

Hours-long lines, “No gas” signs and plastic bags covering fuel-pump nozzles are familiar sights around Atlanta, to what drivers have get to the core familiar with fuel- delivery schedules, rising before daybreak when they know gas is coming to a certain occupation.

“I was just in Atlanta yesterday. There is no gasoline in Atlanta, in Charlotte, in Chattanooga. It’s parallel a Third World country,” maker House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Sunday on ABC.

Police officers and a bond guard were on hand to horsemanship the flow of cars at a downtown Atlanta gas station around midday Monday.

The average price for periodical gas Monday was $3.94 per gallon in Georgia, 30 cents higher than the national medial sum, according to the AAA. Motorists were profitable an average of $3.89 a gallon Monday in North Carolina and $3.80 in South Carolina.

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