FORT SMITH, Ark. — Many viewers across our area have reached out saying they are having trouble finding gas to put in their cars. This has been a problem people have been seeing on and off for several weeks now.
“I wouldn’t say that I’m worried, just a bit frustrated that I can’t get gas,” said Debbie Bandinere.
Bandinere tried to get gas at Sam’s Club in Fort Smith during her lunch break Friday (April 2) and they were out. By the time we got there the tanker was refilling the pumps.
She says she noticed a few weeks ago that the Walmart gas station on Highway 71 south was often closed.
“It’s frustrating when you drive by last night and drive by again today and it’s just not open,” she said.
Allison Stith has also experienced the same issue but at a Springdale gas station earlier this week.
“I hadn’t heard about any gas shortages and it was strange to see all those signs up when I hadn’t heard anything about it,” she said.
She was able to fill up at a nearby gas station but says she started to worry because of a previous experience.
“A couple of years ago we were in Texas and there was a gas shortage then and everybody panicked, and all the gas stations sold out and closed and you couldn’t get gas for three days at that time," Stith said. "So, it was a little worrying to see that maybe happening again."
Triple A says this appears to be an outage supply issue, not a gasoline shortage, that is lingering effects from the February winter storm that hit Texas and caused references production to drop to 40%.
Spokesman Nick Chabarria says they’ve also seen a 23% increase in gasoline demand since February.
“That’s as folks get a little more comfortable with traveling as vaccines roll out and folks are starting to return to work instead of working from home and things like that, so you know it could be a twofold event with gasoline demand increasing as well as some of those supply issues still catching up from the winter storm,” he said.
5NEWS reached out to Walmart corporate to see if they could tell us the reason for their outages but we have still not heard back.