Louisiana Gas Stations Grapple with Outages as Hurricane Ida Clea

By Daniella Genovese FOXBusiness

Louisiana gas stations are still grappling with outages more than a week after one of the most powerful hurricanes made landfall in the Gulf Coast region, leaving few areas with fuel and even power.

65.2% of stations in Baton Rouge are still out of fuel, GasBuddy's Patrick De Haan tweeted.

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According to De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, nearly 62% of stations in New Orleans and over 58% of stations in Lafayette are also facing outages.

The percentage of outages in each of the aforementioned cities stayed relatively the same compared to Sunday's figures. However, it's a slight improvement from Saturday when outages in Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Lafayette were at 74.3%, 65.6% and 63%, respectively.

De Haan also cautioned motorists that 15.1% of stations in Biloxi, Mississippi, were out of fuel on Saturday as well as 7.4% in Jackson and another 5.1% in Hattiesburg.

Ida, which made landfall on Aug. 29 in Port Fourchon, Louisiana, with winds of 155 miles per hour, knocked out over 90% of the offshore Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production, according to Reuters.

Entergy Corporation, which delivers electricity to millions of customers throughout Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, also noted that Ida’s "catastrophic intensity" impacted major transmission lines.

A day after the storm hit, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan issued emergency fuel waivers for Louisiana and Mississippi, effective immediately, due to the "extreme and unusual fuel supply circumstances."

The move temporarily lifts some regulations in Louisiana and Mississippi in order to help "improve the fuel supply circumstances caused by Hurricane Ida," the agency said.

The waivers are slated to end on Sept. 16.

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.

LOOK: Here are 25 ways you could start saving money today

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Filed Under: Louisiana