NEW YORK – A year after Hurricane Sandy ripped up the East Coast, knocking out power to numerous gasoline stations and leaving thousands of drivers searching for fuel, New York and New Jersey have concocted a disaster plan to avoid a repeat, the Christian Science Monitor reports.
N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced over the weekend that his state would maintain a gasoline reserve to circumvent the sort of supply shortages triggered by Hurricane Sandy. The program will initially store around 3 million gallons of gasoline, which would be used for emergency vehicles and Long Island drivers. New York also requires nearly half of the gas retailers in New York City, Long Island and other localities to install wiring for emergency generator hookups. By April 2014, gasoline stations located within a half mile of evacuation routes or highway exits would need to have backup power within a day of any declared emergency.
The New York Association of Convenience Stores (NYACS) wasn’t totally onboard with the decision at first, but came around when the state said it would give gas stations $17 million to pay for the upgrades. “If the state feels that backup power is critical enough that we’re going to mandate it, then the state should offset our costs,” said Jim Calvin, NYACS president. “So we were satisfied with the final legislation that was passed and is now in the process of being implemented.”
The association also is pushing to have backup power mandates apply to wholesale terminals, too. “We felt strongly, and we still do, that if certain gas stations at the retail level are going to be required to have backup power arrangements, then so should the wholesale motor fuel terminals,” he said. “[That's] because a lot of them were out of gas, either because the refinery shut down or the pipelines are shut down, or because those terminals had been damaged or they were without power. So our position was, if this is going to be done, then it should be done at all levels of the supply chain.”
Meanwhile, in New Jersey, last week, Gov. Chris Christie said gasoline stations located close to evacuation routes would be eligible for federal grants to install generators, but the state has stopped short of requiring such changes. “We did not have a gas shortage. We had enough gas to fill every station, swimming pool and bathtub in New Jersey,” said Sal Risalvato, executive director of the New Jersey Gasoline, C-Store and Automotive Association. “We had a gas delivery crisis. All those big storage tanks you see on the New Jersey Turnpike – we had no way of getting it to the points of service.”