Is gas easier to find now? What fuming drivers are finding at South Florida stations

Howard Cohen, Douglas Hanks, Omar Rodríguez Ortiz
·4 min read
12

Fuel supply in South Florida is flowing in the right direction.

The number of gas stations with fuel continues to grow in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area, dropping from over half with no fuel on Wednesday to just under half Thursday afternoon, according to GasBuddy, an app that tracks gas prices and availability.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management says that fuel deliveries continued overnight as state authorities have deployed a million gallons of fuel from Port Canaveral and Tampa since April 14.

And Broward County’s Port Everglades, where around 40% of the fuel enters the state, announced Thursday that its number of gas terminals in operation remained at 9 out of 12, but that fuel was moving out 24/7 to stations with an estimated 9.1 million gallons of fuel dispensed daily.

Gas supply slowed and panic at the pumps went into overdrive after last week’s floods, when over two feet of rain fell in the Fort Lauderdale area on April 12, a record rainfall over a 24-hour period. Roads were underwater around both Port Everglades and the nearby Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, which had to be shut down for two days.

How many stations have no fuel?

Here’s what we know:

At around 3:30 p.m. Thursday, the GasBuddy tracker read:

▪ Miami-Fort Lauderdale: 47% (down from 56% Wednesday afternoon)

▪ West Palm Beach-Fort Pierce: 27% (down from 31.3%)

▪ Fort Myers-Naples: 4% (up from 3.6%)

Drivers fuming

A line of cars, stretching nearly half a mile down 117th Avenue, spills into a BJ’s gas station at 3 p.m. Wednesday, April 19, 2023.
A line of cars, stretching nearly half a mile down 117th Avenue, spills into a BJ’s gas station at 3 p.m. Wednesday, April 19, 2023.

Many drivers stewing in long lines or finding one empty gas station after another aren’t buying what the trackers, the port or state are saying.

“I’m not sure about the ‘56’ percent of gas stations that have no gas. Along U.S. 1 in the Pinecrest/South Miami area, it’s 100 percent that have no gas,” reader Bruce Rubin, a longtime Miami public relations executive, said in an email to the Miami Herald on Wednesday. That’s when GasBuddy reported that just over half the stations in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area were running on empty — an improvement from the 68% peak Tuesday night.

At noon Thursday, a spot check on GasBuddy’s app of station status showed a field of yellow pins on the map, meaning “limited fuel operations” as reported by the fuel monitoring service.

Purple pins, meaning a station is reported by users as having fuel and power, were fewer. At the moment, a Shell at 8033 S. Dixie Highway, a Marathon at 6350 S. Dixie and a 7-Eleven at 6700 SW 56th St. were listed as open and selling. But that could change quickly.

GasBuddy’s map of a South Florida region including South Miami/Pinecrest, Coral Gables, Kendall and Tamiami shows stations with and without fuel as reported by users of the fuel tracking app. This is a snapshot of noon Thursday, April 20, 2023.
GasBuddy’s map of a South Florida region including South Miami/Pinecrest, Coral Gables, Kendall and Tamiami shows stations with and without fuel as reported by users of the fuel tracking app. This is a snapshot of noon Thursday, April 20, 2023.

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, responded: “GasBuddy thanks its tens of thousands of volunteer price spotters for covering nearly every single one of Miami/Fort Lauderdale’s 1,690 gas stations with timely updates on outages. While we’ve seen many citizens survey a few stations on the route of their commute, GasBuddy’s community has provided over 1 million updates on outages covering every hour of the day at nearly every station across Southeast Florida,” he told the Miami Herald in an email.

‘Plenty of fuel’

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava holds a press conference in front of idle gas pumps at a Shell station in Coconut Grove on Wednesday, April 19, 2023.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava holds a press conference in front of idle gas pumps at a Shell station in Coconut Grove on Wednesday, April 19, 2023.

Tank topping and panic buying are the primary drivers of the gas crisis since the flood’s peak in Fort Lauderdale on April 12, experts say.

“I can assure you it’s panic. This is so unnecessary. There is plenty of fuel,” Maximo Alvarez told the Miami Herald on Thursday. Alvarez is founder and president of Sunshine Gasoline Distributors, which delivers gas to more than 500 stations in Florida.

“The message to the consumer is: Please, please continue your normal routine,” he said. “Buy gas only when you need it.”

LEARN MORE: Can you find gas in Miami? Fuel crisis easing? What to know about supply after the flood

KNOW MORE: What’s behind Miami’s gas shortage?

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