Business & Tech

In Deer Park, Gas is Gold

Fuel lines extend for hours, but generators, cars need to be filled.

Harold Jamison will make it to the Tanger Outlet center this afternoon to see Ben Affleck's "Argo."

"That movie is so good, I have to see it. I'm not missing it. It's about the 1979 Iran conflict and there is old TV video clips and everything," Jamison said.

But first, he was living his own 1970s-style flashback, a nearly three-hour wait to get gas in Deer Park in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

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Jamison was in line to get to the Deer Park Express station on the corner of Deer Park and Long Island avenues. He was still idling around the corner on Lake Avenue and E. 4th Street. In 90 minutes, he had moved two blocks.

"Hey, it's not bad, I'm listening to Howard Stern, keeping myself busy," said Jamison of Dix Hills.

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Only a few cars behind him, Dennis Mironchik was also patiently waiting, even though he had a full tank of gas. It was the generator on the back of his truck that needed attention.

"We have our grandkids come over to warm up," Mironchik said. "So it's worth the wait. I feel sorry for families with little kids, or the elderly. It's starting to get desperate. This is a wake-up call. The infrastructure in this country is so old. This is a new reality."

Mike Quatela's reality was he needed gas to get to Long Island City for work. The Deer Park resident is a construction worker, and though it could take up most of his day, he needed gas.

"This is out of control," Quatela said. "But I have power, so I'm not going to complain too much."

Neither did Alyssa Kahn of Deer Park, who skipped out on work at a local deli to make sure she had enough gas to get to school in Selden on Monday.

By the time Kahn was done pointing out her mom, who was three cars ahead of her, Jamison had made himself at home in his KIA.

His Internet connection, secured, Jamison was on his laptop.

"Maybe it will be a double feature tonight. 'Flight' is out with Denzel Washington and John Goodman," he said.

"That movie, it's off the hook."

 

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