OCR Text |
Show ,M6nJayfSept12.2005 211 JOEL Retail gas prices hit all time high after Katrina BY JEREMIAH MARQUEZ Associated Press Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) - Damage to Gulf Coast refineries and pipelines by Hurricane Katrina pushed retail gas prices to historic highs in the past two weeks, iwith self-serve regular averaging more than $3 a gallon for the first time ever, according to a nationwide survey released Sunday. The weighted average price for all three grades surged more than 38 cents to nearly $3.04 a gallon between Aug. 26 and Sept. 9, said Trilby Lundberg, who publishes the semimonthly Lundberg Survey of 7,000 gas stations around the country. Self-serve regular averaged $3.01 a gallon nationwide, according to the survey. Midgrade was pegged at about $3.11, while premium-grade was at nearly $3.21. "That's all thanks to Katrina," Lundberg said. The spike occurred despite declines in the cost of crude oil in recent weeks. The hurricane decimated refineries along the Gulf Coast, cutting 11 percent of the nation's refining capacity for all petroleum products and shutting down essential pipelines to the East Coast and elsewhere, Lundberg said. On Saturday, more than 120 Gulf of Mexico oil and gas platforms were still closed and nearly 60 percent of the Gulf of Mexico's normal daily oil production remained blocked from the market because of evacuations due to Hurricane Katrina, the federal Minerals Management Service said. Adjusted for inflation, the nation's previous high weighted average for all three grades was SI.38 a gallon in March 1981. That would be $3.03 in current dollars. Lundberg said prices could drop sharply in the coming weeks by 10 cents or more as gasoline importsflowin and demand eases with the traditional September drop-off, fewer drivers in storm-stricken areas and other consumers limiting trips to the pump. BABY YOUR BABY More than 40 percent of college-age women in Utah who get pregnant don't plan for it. Are you ready? lat healthy & exercise Take vitamins containing folic acid • Talk to your doctor before you get pregnant • Avoid drugs, tobacco and alcohol Now is the time to Baby Your Baby. For more information call 1-800-826-9662 or visit www.babyyourbaby.org Wanted: Tourists in time for New Orleans Perry, president and chief executive officer of the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Never before has it happened: Bureau, who spoke by phone a major American tourist area last week from the Baton Rouge - not just an attraction, but an office where he has temporarily entire destination - out of busirelocated. Iness, all at once. The wreckage Perry said that, "right now, iof New Orleans includes its very the reaction people have is a visiname, fallen from the list of ceral reaction from the images ibig-time travel sites, where it has they see on television. Six weeks jranked near the top for decades. from now, that will be different. I This may seem inconsequenTwo months from now, it will be tial, given the human suffering different. Six months from now, that has marked the region it will be markedly different." for nearly two weeks after Perry was quick to say that Hurricane Katrina laid to waste the city has a monumental task one of the nation's most stylish, before it - and that it will be a graceful and saucy cities. In the different New Orleans after the long run, though, tourism - or power is restored, the streets are the question of what economic clean, the services and stores are :force will replace it - will be operating, and the buildings are jamong New Orleans' big worrenewed. ries. "And we are going to be Before the disaster, tourism brutally frank in saying when's accounted for the paychecks the right time to come back," he of 81,000 people in the region, said, explaining that the conNew Orleans officials say. It is vention bureau is not interested difficult to rebuild a city if its in attracting tourists before the major source ofincome is not police force, waste management, revived. and other city services are able to accommodate them. "We're getting inundated by convention planners, meetIn one of the nation's most ing planners, travel marketers, popular convention towns, the telling us that they love the bureau has canceled convencity. 'Tell us when you're ready,' tions through March. "The they're saying," said J. Stephen commitment of New Orleans BY HOWARD SHAPIRO KRT to a flawless experience for our customers means unequivocally that we will not reopen for convention business until the experience is perfect and to your and our high standards," Perry wrote last week on the bureau's Web site, www.neworleanscvb. com. Tourism facilities will be revamped early on, he said on the phone - but not for tourism. Hotels, restaurants, and some basic transportation need to be operating for people who are rebuilding the city. New Orleans welcomed more than 10 million visitors last year, and various government and private research firms place the local spending of those tourists, passers-through, conventioneers and business travelers from $4.4 billion to $4.9 billion. That figure covers payments for lodging, food, getting around the city, tours, entertainment, and recreation. The share that found its way to New Orleans' local tax coffers: $107 million. Orleans Parish, which is the city of New Orleans, is one of five parishes that take in about three-quarters of Louisiana's tourist dollars - money that has made tourism Louisiana's second-biggest industry, behind health care, according to state officials. Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu had said that the economic impact of travel on the state would hit the $10 billion mark this year, a projection that Katrina has wiped out. New Orleans' major tourist areas are battered but not broken, Perry said. "If we'd lost the French Quarter, we really would lose New Orleans as a travel destination," he said. But "it was like a big hand came down and protected the Quarter, which has insignificant damage" through its tiny, historic streets that only two weeks ago bustled, with kitchen aromas pouring from restaurants; the sights of wrought-iron gates, and shop windows, and busy hotels; and what seemed at the time like the endless sounds of jazz. In and around the Quarter, "the majority of the hotels fared very well," Perry said. "They have window damage. The Convention Center has damage to the roof and water damage to Halls A and B, and every square inch of carpeting and wall covering will have to be completely pulled and replaced. Frankly, it will look a lot better than it did over the past 10 years." GREAT DEALS! See Nate Wilson Lease an 'OS Nissan AM ma for o )( o ) per month for 24 months with $2000 Down. 2 In 5tecJr, Taxes, UC«BM F M ' I , net Included In Down Payment. 13k pmr ym. WILSON MOTOR COMPANY FORD • LINCOLN • MERCURY • NISSAN 32( North M*l« • Unj*n, UT • www.*tt*onnwtof-toeMi-C9n! (435) 752-7355 • 1-800-594-8901 S LINCOLN Mercury lot Recruitment Week For more information on joining a fraternity or sorority at Utah State University, or to register for fall recruitment, please contact the Student Involvement and Leadership office at 435-797-1716; stop by TSC 326, or email Lynne Singleton at lynnes@cc.usu.edu HIP! student advocate - organizations & traditions - arts & lectures - activites/stab - athletics - public relations - college councils - extension - val r. christensen service center - campus diversity - public affairs board - graduate studies http://a-station.usu.edu T INV Here, yo , extra c ^•*WwJUv. SI At Utah State, you can try it all. ite. you It Involvement fir ider; Taggart Student "321 discoveiwiwiagaHPrav of* cular opportumrVs designed to round out your educatioi |