By Steve Huffman
shuffman@salisburypost.com
The economy is tanking, the stock market is plunging and recovery appears years in the making.
But, hey, gas in Rowan County dropped Friday to $2.99 a gallon!
“They’re working me to death,” said a cashier who answered the phone at Mikey’s, a convenience store at the intersection of Main Street and Roseman Road across from the N.C. Highway Patrol station south of Salisbury.
Mikey’s was one of a few places in the county where gas was selling for $2.99 a gallon, a price that hasn’t been seen since … well, for several weeks, anyway.
Carol Gifford, a spokeswoman for AAA Carolinas, said gas prices in North Carolina and South Carolina spiked when Hurricane Ike knocked oil refineries in the Gulf of Mexico out of commission.
She said the two states have since suffered “hurricane hangover” brought on by a problem in getting gas and an inventory shortage.
Meanwhile, the price of a gallon of gas in the Carolinas soared to the highest in the continental United States, the average reaching almost $4 a gallon.
“Retailers were forced to pay whatever they could to get gas for their customers,” Gifford said.
On Friday, the average being paid for a gallon in North Carolina dropped to $3.67. That’s still considerably higher than the national average of $3.35, but Gifford said it’s a step in the right direction.
“I think we’ll follow the national trend and continue to fall,” she said.
Connie Miller, manager of the Hot Spot, located less than a block north of Mikey’s on South Main Street, said her store started the local drive to drop gas below $3 a gallon.
She said the Hot Spot offered regular gas for $2.99 Friday morning. The store quickly sold its 3,800-gallon supply. “It was going fast,” Miller said.
She said she didn’t know what the store paid for the gas, and said profits were surely small. “I think we’re making a little bit, but not that much,” Miller said.
She said Mikey’s lowered its price to stay competitive with the Hot Spot. Miller said her supplier promised the Hot Spot will soon be getting more gas, meaning, perhaps, that a good old-fashioned gas war is in the works.
Jerry Alligood, the owner of Jerry’s Shell Service on Jake Alexander Boulevard, said Friday his station had dropped the price of gas 30 cents a gallon over the past week ó from $3.89 to $3.59.
He agreed with others that prices will continue falling.
“I think the supply is slowly improving,” Alligood said. “I think we’ll see prices drop on down once we get over the crunch.”
The Wilco-Hess station at the corner of South Main Street and Airport Road also offered gas for $2.99 a gallon Friday. A store employee said he wasn’t allowed to speak to the media and referred a caller to the company’s corporate headquarters.
A woman who answered the phone there said, “Friday afternoon is a bad time to get anybody to talk. You can call back Monday.”