Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Hurricanes Gustav and Ike are making their presence felt in the U.S. South almost two weeks after the last of the storms slammed the Gulf Coast, as evidenced by the gas lines in Atlanta.

At a Shell gasoline station this morning in Atlanta's Midtown district, about 25 drivers waited for a chance to pump what's become a rare commodity. The line clogged a side street, causing backups on Peachtree, the city's main thoroughfare.

``We got about 12 or 13 cars outside right now,'' said Randy Akins, assistant manager of the Shell station on Peachtree Street. ``It's crazy. It's been like this since 6 a.m. We'll probably be out by lunchtime at this rate. I don't know when we're going to get more.''

That's a common concern at filling stations from Atlanta to Nashville, Tennessee, to Charlotte, North Carolina, after Gustav and Ike idled 20 percent of the nation's refining capacity. U.S. gasoline inventories fell last week to a 41-year low. QuikTrip Corp., which runs more than 111 gasoline stations in the Atlanta area, said it shut down fuel pumps at about half its stores and is struggling to keep fuel flowing at those it's keeping on.

``Atlanta's getting hammered pretty good with outages,'' said Randy Bly, a regional spokesman for AAA, the biggest U.S. motorist club. ``It looks like the most stressed in the entire Southeast.''

Fuel supplies in Nashville are up to about 70 percent of capacity from 30 percent earlier this week, Bly said. Four out of five stations in Charlotte are empty, according to AAA. Cities further north and closer to the coast supplemented their fuel supplies with shipments by barge, AAA said.

Refineries Idled

Four refineries remain shut down after Gustav struck the Louisiana coast on Sept. 1 and Ike made landfall in southeast Texas on Sept. 13. Five plants are restarting, and nine are running at reduced rates.

At least 46 million barrels of motor-fuel output was lost between Aug. 30 and Sept. 19, according to the U.S. Energy Department. Pipelines capable of carrying about 4.9 million barrels a day of gasoline and distillate fuels were shut down or running below capacity.

Alpharetta, Georgia-based Colonial Pipeline Co., the world's largest operator of petroleum-product conduits, continues to ship fuel at reduced rates, spokesman Steve Baker said. The company's main lines stretching from the Gulf Coast to New York Harbor have been slowed since Sept. 1.

Plastic grocery bags covered the handles of gas pumps today at some stations in Gwinnett County, northeast of Atlanta. The overhead sign at a QuikTrip in Norcross, Georgia, had blank squares where the price usually hangs.

Lines for Gas

Another QuikTrip, about two miles (three kilometers) away off Interstate 85, was jammed with cars trying to squeeze into lines at pumps that were each at least two deep with drivers waiting to fill up. There was no premium or mid-grade gas, only regular unleaded. Tractor trailers were three deep waiting for diesel on the back side of the station.

QuikTrip went through this three years ago when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita smacked the Gulf Coast within four weeks of each other and the chain's Atlanta-area stores ran out of gasoline, company spokesman Mike Thornbrugh said.

This time, the spokesman said, the chain stopped fuel sales at half of its area convenience stores so it could try to keep the other half supplied with gasoline and diesel. At times, fuel has been so scarce that only about one-fourth of the stores have gasoline, he said.

As for when more fuel will be available, Thornbrugh said, ``don't ask me for a projection because I don't know. We're scrambling just to try to find fuel.''

Georgia vs. Alabama

Tomorrow in Athens, Georgia, 90 minutes from downtown Atlanta, the University of Georgia football team plays the University of Alabama. The game will draw more than 92,000 fans, many of whom will make the 275-mile drive along Interstate 20 from Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

``I suspect that will put a huge stress on gas along I- 20,'' said Bly of AAA. ``Police are trying to appeal to people to carpool. I don't know how they're going to handle 100,000 people in that town this weekend.''

Tex Pitfield, chief executive officer at Doraville-based Saraguay Petroleum, which delivers gas to more than 16,000 stations in Georgia, said the game should be postponed. He estimated that fans will burn about 250,000 gallons of gasoline along Interstate 20 and wind up in Athens, where many filling stations are empty.

``People need to know there is enough gas to do normal, day-to-day activities,'' he said. ``But excess road trips and jaunts to the mall are endangering'' the supply.

To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Clothier in Atlanta at mclothier@bloomberg.net; Laurence Viele Davidson in Atlanta at lviele@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 26, 2008 15:47 EDT