In North Jersey, a desperate search for gasoline

MONTCLAIR, N.J. -- Three days after Hurricane Sandy came and went, the hunt was on for fuel.

At an Exxon station in Montclair, where fights erupted overnight among drivers frantic to fill up, yellow police tape wound around empty pumps. But motorists paid that little mind Thursday morning. They pulled in, anyway, asking when more gas would come and where else they could find some.

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Rosa Lazzizera, a teacher from nearby West Orange, sat in her car a half-block away, waiting for the station to reopen.

"They said they were going to get something by 6," said Lazzizera who had arrived at 10 a.m. "I'm going to just sit here and wait. I'm on zero. I'll be lucky if the car turns on.''

She had Diet Coke and cake to while away the time. Still, she said it was hard to believe it had come to this.

"I think something is going to break out because things are getting so desperate,'' she said. "I think in times of need people are going to show who they really are.''

Station owner Abhishek Soni said the station closed before dawn Thursday because the crowd had gotten ugly.

"People started fights,'' he said. "They wanted to throw coffee on us.''

On Wednesday, when the station received gas at 4 p.m., Soni said he let families fill their plastic containers with fuel first so they could get back home and keep their generators going.

"I wanted to make sure families were OK, because I have a kid,'' he said. "I'm here 16 hours, pumping gas myself.''

Over nine hours, Soni filled 1,700 plastic containers and sold 8,000 gallons of gasoline.

The U.S. Energy Department said Thursday afternoon that 16 Northeast refineries were shut or running at reduced rates. Some relief may come Friday: An 825,000-barrel-a-day pipeline carrying gasoline and diesel from North Carolina to Linden, N.J., is to resume limited operations. And the Port of New York has reopened to loaded fuel barges.

Responding to the long lines and short tempers, the state police on Thursday stationed troopers at all service areas on the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike "to keep order," the city of Newark tweeted.

It was a familiar scene throughout these suburban towns of North Jersey. The needs may not have been as dire as in some other parts of the region, where residents were struggling to get food and water. But gas tanks were getting low. Generators were the only ways to keep houses lit and warm, and the search for fuel was growing increasingly frantic.

Sheryl Frost had a little less than a quarter of a tank. "I'm driving around trying to find gas,'' said Frost, of Montclair, who was calling friends to find out where she might be able to fill up.

After pulling into a Delta station that had gas but no power to pump it, Frost considered heading home to conserve what she had left. "It's scary," she said.

On Twitter, #njgas and #njopen were providing updates on where to find gas. Many stations are accepting only cash.

Among residents who had gas, some used it to search for electricity.

Marisol Segarra lives in Newark but drove to a Starbucks in nearby Glen Ridge to charge her laptop and sign in to an online college course. "If I don't log in today I'll be dropped,'' she said.

Back home, Segarra said, she had "no power, no Internet, no heat . ... I think that a lot of people underestimated (Superstorm Sandy) due to the fact (Hurricane) Irene was not as bad.''

Still, the storm was bringing her neighbors together, she said. They gathered to clean up the street where trees and a power pole had fallen. "If I made coffee, another brought bread," Segarra said. She'd even cooked chicken noodle soup for more than 20 people after the temperature dropped.

St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Montclair posted a sign on the corner declaring that it had Wi-Fi, electric outlets and free coffee. That was enough to lure Judy Vogel inside.

"I can't get into the city,'' said Vogel, who lives in Montclair and works in advertising in Lower Manhattan. "The pressures of work don't really let up. ... It's very frustrating, because you have things that have to get done. We're in the mode where we have to get things done all the time, and you feel a little paralyzed.''

Life was different during Hurricane Irene. Vogel's lights stayed on and "we opened up our home to friends who went days without power.''

This time, she is the one who had to throw away the spoiled food in her refrigerator. E-mail alerts from the local utility company, PSE&G, warned that power might not be restored for seven more days.

"I'm having dreams about the power coming back on,'' she said. "When I woke up this morning and saw my breath, I knew it wasn't.

"And then I look at the newspaper and see pictures of the rest of the state,'' she added. "And I have nothing to complain about.''

USA Today