Getting Gas in Red Bank? Prepare to Wait

If you're in Red Bank and need to top off your car's tank, or fill up those cans so you can keep feeding your generator, prepare to wait.

It seems the word's gotten out. Since the borough's lone operating gas station got power back late Thursday night, the Shell at the corner of Newman Springs Road and Shrewsbury Avenue, its been sporting an hours-long wait with Red Bank Police on hand to help direct traffic and keep everyone in line.

Some come with their cars nearly empty, some are just looking for a little bit more, but all are in search of one thing: gas.

"I came to Red Bank to bring my boyfriend some food while he was working and one the way back I saw this was open. I'm half full, but I figured I'd fill it up," Matawan resident Vivian Pichardo said. "When I'm done, I'll see if I can come back and fill up my boyfriends car."

The line from the Shell station extended all the way down Shrewsbury avenue past Pilgrim Baptist Church more than a mile away at around noon time. Most of those Patch spoke too Friday afternoon said they were waiting in line about an hour and a half, which, they say, is not as bad as it's been elsewhere.

For Chris McCaffery of Little Silver, waiting in line for gas has become a regular occurrence.

"This is day three for me waiting is gas lines," he said, totting six gas cans along in his SUV. "Yesterday I got up at around 5 a.m. to go to the Wawa in Leonardo. While I was waiting in line they ran out of gas. I had to wait four hours."

Most area residents are still without power. Though there have been slight decreases in the number of outages in the Red Bank and Shrewsbury area, in many areas where trees have fallen on power lines, Jersey Central Power and Light still has yet to show up. JCP&L said it estimates that power, for most, will come back on within the week. Some should expect to wait as long as two weeks, however.

With electricity still not back, gas is at a premium. The Shell was only dishing out $30 of gas at a time and had posted a sign that it wasn't accepting cans, though that didn't seem to stick. When asked when they could expect gas to run out, one attendant said it could be soon.

"It's tough," Rumson resident Thomas Murray said. "All we can do is wait."