"The governor says she was misled. Three days before the pipeline was shut down, Governor Napolitano departed on a 7 day raft trip down the Colorado River. On Friday, August 15, as gas lines were beginning to form in Phoenix, she departed for the annual National Governors Association Conference in Indianapolis, scheduled to run through Monday, August 18. She would later say that Kinder Morgan had assured her that there would be only "spot shortages" of fuel. On the basis of those assurances, at a press conference on August 13, she predicted that there would be some outages at independent stations, but that there would be no widespread shortage. About 1:30 PM on Sunday, Governor Napolitano returned to her room from a seminar on the economic allure of biotech companies to return a phone call. The news she heard was not good. While she was away, long lines were forming at gas stations. The prediction that there would be no widespread shortages was turning out to be seriously in error. Seventy percent or more of stations in the Phoenix area were out of gas."
