Out of gas and miles from home, NC mom with her kids in hot car finds unexpected help
Amid the desperate search for gasoline in the Carolinas on Tuesday, 27-year-old Katrina Tysinger found good Samaritans where she least expected them: At a gas station that sold out of gas nearly six hours before she pulled in.
Tysinger had enough gas in her tank to get her just 7 more miles when she stopped at the Circle K at N.C. 150 and Talbert Road in Mooresville, she told The Charlotte Observer at the station. But she and her children, a 9-month-old and an 8-year-old, still had at least 25 more miles to their home in west Statesville. And it was hot in her Mazda 6 and she’d already tried many other stations, she said.
“We are out of gas!” read the sign on the front door. “Sorry for the issue! A cyber attack on the pipeline shut it down. Could be 2 days-2 weeks. Sorry!”
Tysinger had gotten off work less than an hour before as a server at Iron Thunder Saloon and Grill at Interstate 77 Exit 36, just down N.C. 150 from the Circle K.
She had driven north all the way to I-77 Exit 42 in Troutman looking for gas, and then south on U.S. 21, still without luck, before she came nearly full circle to the Circle K.
Every station she’d stopped at had run out of gas, Tysinger said at about 5 p.m. at the Circle K, where she finally called a friend to bring some gas.
The Circle K ran out at about 12:30 p.m., an employee told the Observer, as did nearby competitors.
Before arriving at the Circle K, an Observer reporter spotted 20 cars lining a road that leads to the BJ’s gas pumps off Exit 36. Workers in neon vests let only two cars at a time at each pump.
Out on N.C. 150, up to four cars lined each of the pumps at a Shell station on River Highway.
Suddenly, as the Observer reporter headed east on N.C. 150 past the Super Walmart, no cars lined at least six stations. They’d already run out.
“It’s like the toilet paper shortage during the pandemic, but worse,” Tysinger said as she waited for her friend. Her husband, 27-year-old Dillon Tysinger, was already working his shift at Bay State Milling Co. in downtown Mooresville, which supplies flour for Little Caesars pizza locations in the region, she said.
“This is a state of emergency,” she said. “People need gas to get to work, and it’s hot and we have children in our cars.”
As the Observer interviewed Tysinger, a store employee told her to pull up to a premium-gas pump. Although every pump had a sign saying no gas, the store reserves a bit for law enforcement in the middle of the night and other emergencies, he said.
“I can give you $5 worth,” he told Tysinger.
She turned to the reporter and said, “I want to cry so bad.”
Late Tuesday, she told the Observer she and her kids made it home without problem.
The pump at the Circle K kept running until $10 of premium gas went into her tank, she said. And her friend showed up at the station with fuel in a gas tank just “to be safe.”
