Pix: Getty ImagesNEW YORK: After being hit by Hurricane Sandy, flooding and power outage, New York residents are bracing for fuel shortage as motorists scrambled to replenish their tanks. 

While motorists made a beeline for petrol kiosks in Jackson Heights and Astoria in Queens, taxi drivers converged at a kiosk at the 72nd Street in Northern Boulevard, prompting the police to bring the situation under control. 

The situation became chaotic after the road from the direction of Woodside to Flushing was congested for the motorists stopped on road shoulders as they waited for their turn to refuel. 

For social workers, Yadwinder Singh and Rahul Singh of the Sikh Cultural Society Center in Richmond Hill, they had to come to Jackson Heights to refuel their van to enable them to send food to Hurricane Sandy victims in Rockaway, the worst affected area.

Rockaway Beach has been devastated by Hurricane Sandy as houses, schools and buildings were crushed by massive tidal surge and raging floodwaters from the Atlantic Ocean.

"We took the risk of sending the meals cooked by volunteers from the centre to the victims," said Yadwinder Singh.

For Christine Chong, a Malaysian from Segamat, Johor, she was only able to refuel her car at the seventh petrol station as the others along the road from her house in 96th Street Northern Boulevard here had ran out of supply.

Her journey from her house to her two launderettes in north-eastern Manhattan took between three and four hours instead of 30 minutes due to traffic congestion as more people drove to work for the public train service had stalled due to flooded subways.

For Nor Rosyida Sudin from Kulim, Kedah, who now lives in New Jersey, she had to head for Pennsylvania to refuel her four-wheel drive vehicle.

"I had to take along my three daughters (age seven, three, and seven months) to look for fuel to replenish my SUV and our generator as well as to visit my parents-in-law who live in Pennsylvania," he said.



- Bernama