MIAMI -- Miami-Dade County, Fla., commissioners passed an ordinance late last week requiring all gas stations to have operating generators in the event of a massive power outage, reported LOCAL 10-TV.
The decision was made after long lines formed at the pump after Hurricane Wilma hit South Florida on October 24, the report said.
About 3.2 million Florida Power & Light customers lost power after the storm, including many gas stations in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Only a handful of stations were operating in [image-nocss] the days that followed, and South Floridians found themselves in a gasoline crisis, the report said.
Details were not available on whether individual stations will have to pay for the generators or if there will be any financial assistance for those stations without them.
At the state level, as reported in CSP Daily News, Governor Jeb Bush said there is a need for stations to have generators for quick restoration of service after hurricanes and hinted he may support bills requiring that, but said the state should not pay for it. Two bills have been filed in the state legislature on the matter.
Bush added that stations should buy generators. Look at the supermarkets that were powered up with their own generators, very quickly getting product to their customers and compare that to the gas stations and you see that there's a need, he said. The question is, should we subsidize it? And the answer is emphatically no. I think that oil companiesand I'm not begrudging them their profitsbut they've done quite well, very well. And we shouldn't be subsidizing something that they have an obligation to do.
Officials in the gasoline industry have said some stations, particularly independently owned ones, might have a hard time buying generators, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars for the industrial-sized units that would be needed to run gas pumps.
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