Riiiiight. . . The gas station owners are gonna be outta there anyway, right?

Just take whatever you need. And take food and televisions too while you're at it.

That said, people weren't stuck in New Orleans because they didn't have gasoline. They were stuck there because they didn't have transportation, period. They were stuck there because there wasn't a plan to evacuate all the people. Some were there because they didn't think the threat was real enough to go somewhere safer.

Vut everybody has a credit card, and nearly all gas pumps accept such cards--so this shouldn't be a problem. (Maybe there should be some rule that, in an emergency, people without credit cards should be allowed to proffer IOUs, as long as they are accompanied by a fingerprint, photo taken by the seller, photocopy of the driver's license, etc.

Last thing I'd do in an emergency is wait in line near a potential explosion.

Evacuating an area by putting everyone in their own vehicles has got to be the dumbest idea. During some evacuations in Texas, drivers were running out of gas and pushing their cars on the Interstate as if they were oversized luggage dollies.

On 11 September 2001, lower Manhattan was evacuated primarily on foot. If you need to get people further away, get all available buses [public transit plus private carriers like Greyhound], and run 'em round trip to evacuation areas. A single lane of road could handle 720 buses per hour, which is over 20,000 people per hour. If you run 2000 cars per hour on the same road, you're talking well under 10,000 people per hour.

Amtrak or commuter-rail carriers could help too; passenger trains can carry massive numbers of people. A simple city subway station can handle 15,000 people per hour.

well flyguy,i never implyied that people drive out individuly,just those that need fuel to get out then whats the problem,do you want to be stuck when your bank card can't work(cause lines are down ,but the fuel center has its own power supply?can't see the bigger picture!