You may want to fill up your gas tank while you can.
On the eve of the busy Labor Day holiday weekend, convenience store operators and other gasoline retailers say there’s a strong chance they will run out of fuel at some locations this weekend because the supply disruptions caused by Hurricane Harvey.
“I called my family members and told them to fill up their tanks,” said John Benda, who owns three Fuel City stores in Haltom City and Dallas and is building a fourth location in Saginaw. “I have never seen it this tight, since 1980, even when we were rationing.”
Multiple refineries have shut down in Houston, Baytown, Port Arthur and other areas slammed by Harvey and the historic flooding that followed. Some pipelines that get the fuel out of the Gulf Coast also are down, Benda said.
At a QuikTrip near Eagle Drive and U.S. 377 in Denton, about two-thirds of the gas pumps were shut down late Tuesday. Customers were told the fuel tanks were running low.
QuikTrip, which operates 135 stores in North Texas, plans to stop selling gasoline at roughly half its stores this weekend, spokesman Mike Thornbrugh said.