Price Gouging

We had a "Snowmageddon" in Lubbock last night. Which is a facetious way to describe a small snow storm with arctically cold air which blew into Lubbock yesterday,in the course of 2 hours. There were a lot of closures and late openings today, including schools, clinics, day cares.  This is good.  It especially keeps our children safe at home. But what about parents whose work does not close, and they have no alternate child care plans, whether for school aged children, or children in day care.

Yesterday, before the storm hit, the stores were Bedlam.  Lubbockites take seriously the advice to be prepared, and any time a major storm (or minor storm) is blowing it, the grocery stores are a beehive of activity: people buying provisions to see them through the storm.

On the way home from work last night, I decided that it would not hurt to top off the fuel tank of the Vue. Today, the price of gasoline at that gas station had jumped $.14.  I went to the grocery store today: their gas prices had jumped the same amount.

Was there some other event that influenced the gasoline prices?  By $.14?  To me, that smacks of price gouging...