Gas Shortage Begins in Malverne, Lynbrook and West Hempstead [Updated]

Update (7:20 p.m. Nov. 1): Three gas stations opened up in Lynbrook Thursday night and were flooded with customers searching for fuel.

As of 7 p.m., the BP station on Merrick Road and Horton Avenue was open. Cars were pulling up to two of the station's three pumps. The third, which only had super gasoline, was designated for customers who brought their own canisters with them. There were more than two dozen people waiting on the line with multiple containers in hand. 

On Broadway and Scranton Avenue, the Spirit gas station was up and running, and the lines of cars waiting to fuel up stretched for blocks and caused traffic james on both streets. 

The Getty on the corner of Lakeview and Ocean Avenue, which had been closed throughout the day, also opened up Thursday night. Around 7:15 p.m., the line was backed up on Lakeview Avenue all the way to Rolling Street.

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Residents living in Malverne, West Hempstead and Lynbrook may want to keep their driving to a minimum.

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, there are very few stations in the neighborhood that still have gasoline and those that do don't have the electricity needed to power their pumps.

Drivers around the area were in a frenzy Thursday morning, racing around the neighborhood to find a station that was opertional and had not exhausted their fuel supply. 

The Hess on Hempstead Turnpike in West Hempstead had gas Thursday morning and therefore, attracted a line of customers that stretched several blocks.

"The line backed up in both directions as far as Nassau Boulevard to the west and Burger King to the east this morning!" Patch reader Christine Canale Montemarano posted on our Facebook page.

By 10:30 a.m. only two of the station's pumps still had some type of gasoline but an hour later they were all out.

The OK station on the corner of Westminster Road and Hempstead Avenue only had diesel. The USA station on Hempstead Avenue (near 7-Eleven in West Hempstead) opened up at 8:30 a.m. Friday morning, operating off of power from the nearby library, and was soon slammed with customers. When Patch got there around noon all the fuel was gone. The station's owner said he was told he might get a delivery of fuel Saturday.

The Gulf station across from Halls Pond Park in West Hempstead was buzzing with activity as cars descended up the station. (We even saw a fender-bender outside involving two cars that were trying to get to the pumps.) However, the station manager had to turn them all away because even though he did have gas, his power was out so he couldn't turn on the pumps. This was also the case for the BP on the corner of Eagle Avenue and Woodfield Road in Lakeview.

In Lynbrook, the Gulf station located at the "Little Five Corners," the intersection of Hempstead, Franklin and Hendrickson, was also closed. So was the station across the street next to Dairy Barn. The BP on Sunrise Highway near Forest Avenue, the Shell on Merrick Road, the Getty on the corner of Ocean Avenue and Lakeview Avenue and the station on the corner of Earle Avenue and Merrick Road were all shut down too.

The only gas station in Malverne, which is located across from Crossroads Farm at the intersection of Hempstead and Ocean avenues, remained closed also.

We spoke to one man in West Hempstead who said he drove into Queens to find a gas station that was open and came up empty handed. He had waited on a line at a gas station on Dutch Broadway in Elmont for two hours and then was turned away when they ran out.

Did you have any luck getting gas in the area after Hurricane Sandy? Where were you able to fuel up? Tell us in the comments section.