Consumers Feel Ike's Wrath at Pump

Sept. 15, 2008— -- The price of crude oil dropped below $100 a barrel today, settling at $95.71. While the price of crude is falling back to Earth from record heights of more than $147 in July, the cost of gasoline, after falling slightly, spiked over the weekend due to Hurricane Ike.

In Chicago today, gas prices reached $4.45 a gallon, while prices in Charleston, S.C., climbed up to $4.59. According to the American Automobile Association, the national average price of regular gas came to $3.84 per gallon.

"We've seen the price of gasoline jump 17 cents over the last three days," said Troy Green, manager at AAA. "This is the most gasoline has skyrocketed at one time since 2005, after Hurricane Katrina."

At one gas station in Houston today, the line of cars stretched almost a mile down the service road of I-45; people waited for more than four hours to fill up their tanks.

The wholesale price of gasoline has surged nearly 40 percent since Thursday, rising $1.50 in one day in areas directly affected by Ike.

The dramatic jump in gas prices, at a time when the price of oil is plunging, has left some consumers both confused and angry.

"If gas prices are up and oil prices are down, that doesn't really make any sense at all," Chicago resident Mark Ekstrom said.

"There's clearly a problem with the oil companies, especially with the record profits, it kind of nauseates me," said Mark Siegel, another Chicago resident.

President Bush acknowledged that as a result of Ike, consumers should expect to see "a pinch" at the pump.

"Folks [are] probably going to have to expect some upward pressure on price because the storm disrupted the supply of gasoline as a result of shutting down refineries and pipelines," Bush said.

Along the Gulf coast, the refineries in Ike's path escaped serious damage. The Louisiana State Department of Natural Resources reported today that the "basic infrastructure of the state's oil and gas industry appears to have weathered the storm with almost no damage."