After Camille struck MS in '69 we had no power in the area for weeks. There was only one station that had a back up generator. It led north out of Gulfport on Hwy. 49. The line there was three miles long. The owner decided to raise the price to $1.00/gal since he was the only game in town.
The Harrison Co. Sheriff came in and arrested the jackass for gouging, took him to jail and took over operation of the station.
Point here is that loss of power has an IMMEDIATE effect in all sectors whereas, truck stoppage gives folks a little bit of time to do something even though it is a very short amount of time.
And, as a result, the cars towards the front of the line drained the station’s tanks dry at probably 25 cents per gallon.
Then, the cars further back, instead of being able to buy a few gallons at $1.00 per gallon, got to buy zero gallons at 25 cents per gallon.