FUEL!!! get yours while you can!, My adventure to get a surplus! Options

[Jake Raby]

Here is a cross post from my forum.... Go fill your tanks up folks- all the stations here are 100% dry!

I heard the local radio station warn that our fuel supply system that brings fuel into Atlanta from the Gulf was screwed and that by Monday the entire area may be out of fuel I knew we'd be screwed on the dyno unless I got my ass in gear!

So I grab the old Military ammo trailer, throw in 3, 55 gallon drums and haul ass to the gas station...

I get there and basically had to cut off some jackass in a lowrider to secure a gas pump... I start filling the drums and after I get the first one almost filled the attendant cut me off and came out yelling... The jerk in the lowrider went in and started whining! So she pretty much ran me off- I paid and left...

So after that I knew that I had to be a bit less conspicuous if I planned on getting enough fuel to hold us over for a while on the dyno.... So I toss the two empty drums INSIDE the bus with me... Find a station that still had some premium and start filling up. Of course I had the bus parked so no one could really see that I had two drums inside it.... The tinted windows really helped!

So I get about 100 bucks worth in the first drum, attendant comes out and asks me what I'm doing... I replied that it was an extended range fuel tank for my bus.... She let me finish filling it up!!! BUT I ran the tank out of gas before it was full to the brim..

So I had back to the shop, drop off the trailer and the one full drum and head off looking for more fuel... I find another station that has some 93 left, whip the bus in and start filling the drum... a line ends up forming behind me and people start getting pissed, but they can't see what I'm doing- it takes a while to pump 55 gallons of fuel! One guy gets out of his car, comes over and starts whining... About that time I get a big gulp of air comes through the hose and the pump ran out of gas!!! I acted like I was finished and drove away!

On the way back I stopped back by the first place that ran me off and filled up the bus and topped off the final drum and headed back to the shop... Grabbed the 912E and filled it up, then the Blue Bug and filled it up.....

All in all the bill came out to about 575.00 to fill up enough to last us for maybe a month on the dyno....

So if ypu are one of my engine customers, you'll be looking at a fuel surcharge added to your tab- thank god I was able to even get the fuel.... It was a pain in the ass though, people get furious when they see you filling up a drum with fuel.

Don't think I'm a hog- we can't work without fuel!

[dmenche914]

Jake i am sure your 165 gallon "investment in your bussiness" has and will continue to increase in value in the coming days. I need to go find a spare gas can myself.

California gas has not spiked much yet, only several cents at some station, our gas is refined elsewere (some over seas, thanks to that stupid custom blend gasoline law), but as the price goes up in the East, some Cali clean gas will start making its way there, causing the entire nation even California which is not so relaint on Gulf of Mexico refineries to have much higher prices.

I guess we got to get used to it, but all our bitching about gas, even if it were $20 a gallon is nothing compared to the folk hit by the hurricane, and floods. They have been devistated in many many areas, homes, bussiness, jobs wiped out, and 100's dead, a city flooded like no other flood I can think of, where the water is pooled and staying put for weeks and weeks. This is worse than i thought possible.

The biggest cause of this disaster is the dike failures. They simply could not hold back the water, and when crested over, failed.

When they rebuild, I bet a lot of building will be on stilts, more dikes should be required, such that if there is a single failure of a dike, that only a small section of city will flood. To have a design with no sectioning off of parts of the city with seperate dikes that normally would be dry on both sides, would have greatly minimized this disaster.


Any other cities vulnerable to this?


I sure hope they recover well, and hope loss of life is minimal. The rest of the nation needs to pitch in and help them. This is like the San Fransisco Quake and Fire in 1906. It is that bad, but not all is lost, they well rebuild and get on, it just going to be one hell of a bitch to make right again, but it can be done.


Good Luck New Orleans, God's Speed on your Recovery.