How Weather Can Disrupt the Flow at the Pump

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

February 1, 2013 | 5:32 PM

When Hurricane Sandy created a gasoline shortage and rationing in New York this past November, it came as a surprise to many. But the high winds and flooding caused by hurricanes aren’t the only weather related disruptions to gasoline distribution, according to an EIA release. Droughts, frozen waterways, and blizzards can all bring the transport of crude oil and gasoline to a halt. And each point in the process has its own potential disruptions. High winds and choppy seas can stop production on off-shore platforms, loss of power at ports could halt imports, droughts can maroon barges, and large snow storms can prevent truck transportation. The U.S. Energy Information Administration details the pathways from crude oil to retail gasoline in this diagram:

During Hurricane Sandy, flooding at east coast refineries forced shut downs, and some major pipelines also lost power, resulting in a short supply and long lines at the pump.