Major gas station disruptions were reported in Louisiana after Hurricane Ida

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As of 3:30 p.m. Central Time, 35.2% of Baton Rouge gas stations had no fuel, according to GasBuddy, an app that tracks fuel prices and demand. Nearly 30 percent of New Orleans gas stations were without gas in the same way, GasBuddy said.

The disruptions were not so severe outside of these large cities. For the general state of Louisiana, almost 13% of gas stations have no fuel, GasBuddy said.

It’s important to note that these outages don’t include gas stations that can’t serve customers because they don’t have electricity, Patrick De Haan, head of gas analysis at GasBuddy, told CNN Business.

In other words, the actual percentage of gas stations that drivers cannot turn to for gasoline is likely to be higher in regions without electricity.

Experts have urged people not to overreact to the damage that Hurricane Ida has caused to the region’s energy infrastructure. In May, the purchase of gasoline panic exacerbated supply problems caused by the six-day shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline following a ransomware attack.

Two days after Hurricane Ida hit the Gulf Coast, virtually all of the Gulf of Mexico’s oil production remains offline and at least nine refineries are closed, according to regulators.

“It’s a long-running event, if you don’t need fuel urgently, delay shopping for those who are critical and first responders,” De Haan said.

The U.S. Department of Energy said Tuesday earlier that while power outages are likely to lead to retail gas station shutdowns, refinery and production shutdowns are not expected to cause “immediate supply problems.” .

De Haan of GasBuddy said the app has been tracking Louisiana outages, but previous outage figures were not reported due to an in-app bug that did not prompt the user for updates.

“The numbers may increase rapidly tonight now that we’ve fixed the bug,” he said.

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