美国国家公共电台 NPR With Power Out, Many Florida Gas Stations Remain Closed

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The lack of electricity in a lot of Florida is one reason that people who want to return to their homes are stuck. They're having trouble finding gasoline to make the drive home. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.

JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE¹: When Irma looked like it was aiming for Tampa, Matthew Kemp and his family evacuated² to central Florida. Driving home yesterday, he says virtually every gas station he passed was closed. Now he uses an app on his smartphone to find places to fill up his tank. And Kemp says it's not looking good.

MATTHEW KEMP: People are, you know, posting desperately³ in some cases, you know, is anything open? Is anything open? One person replied and said she had basically driven all around south Tampa today, and every single establishment that is a chain was closed.

ZARROLI: Kemp says a lot of people fled to Georgia or South Carolina to escape the storm. Now they want to come home, he says, and they can't.

KEMP: They feel paralyzed. And they cannot return from their evacuation because no one wants to get in their car and go south on I-95 or south on I-75 and make it 300 miles, run out of gas on the side of the road.

ZARROLI: Irma may be gone, but Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum⁴ analyst⁵ at the website GasBuddy, says thousands of gas stations remain closed.

PATRICK DEHAAN: Fort Myers, Naples, Gainesville, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, Tallahassee, Tampa - all of those areas are seeing outages over 40 percent and in some cases as high as 65 percent.

ZARROLI: Because Irma's struck such a large area, an unusual number of people evacuated. And too many of them rushed to fill up their tanks at the same time. John Kilduff off of Again Capital says a shortage of supply is one reason that so many stations remain closed.

JOHN KILDUFF: But also, power is the issue. And most of these gas stations don't have backup generation that can allow the pumps to work.

ZARROLI: Patrick DeHaan of GasBuddies says utility companies trying to get power back on are having trouble keeping up.

DEHAAN: Motorists are coming back. The storm has moved on. And that's the problem - is motorists really can move, you know, in this case quicker than utility crews restoring vital services.

ZARROLI: So for now, people are making do any way they can. There's no gas available at a 7-Eleven in Fort Myers, and plastic wrap is placed over the gas tanks. Andrew Haltunnen tried to buy gas with no luck. So he ended up calling his father, and now he's siphoning gas from his car. He wants to take I-75 across the state.

ANDREW HALTUNNEN: I'm trying to get to Miami, and Alligator⁶ Alley⁷ is a long stretch. Looked on the app, went to many stations - all out - all no power in this area.

ZARROLI: Nearby, Devan Rios has stopped to buy snacks for his son. Coming from Tampa, he says he'd passed about 50 closed gas stations.

DEVAN RIOS: It's crazy. Obviously a hurricane just passed. It's understandable, but I mean we're not used to this.

ZARROLI: The good news is that gasoline is coming back into the state. And as ports re-open, supplies should gradually return to normal. But as long as power remains⁸ out in so many places, a lot of stations will remain closed anyway. Jim Zarroli, NPR News.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 evacuated   

撤退者的

参考例句：

• Police evacuated nearby buildings. 警方已将附近大楼的居民疏散。
• The fireman evacuated the guests from the burning hotel. 消防队员把客人们从燃烧着的旅馆中撤出来。

3 desperately   

adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地

参考例句：

• He was desperately seeking a way to see her again.他正拼命想办法再见她一面。
• He longed desperately to be back at home.他非常渴望回家。

4 petroleum   

n.原油，石油

参考例句：

• The Government of Iran advanced the price of petroleum last week.上星期伊朗政府提高了石油价格。
• The purpose of oil refinery is to refine crude petroleum.炼油厂的主要工作是提炼原油。

5 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。

6 alligator   

n.短吻鳄(一种鳄鱼)

参考例句：

• She wandered off to play with her toy alligator.她开始玩鳄鱼玩具。
• Alligator skin is five times more costlier than leather.鳄鱼皮比通常的皮革要贵5倍。

7 alley   

n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路

参考例句：

• We live in the same alley.我们住在同一条小巷里。
• The blind alley ended in a brick wall.这条死胡同的尽头是砖墙。

8 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。