FUEL, FOOD AND THE MADNESS OF RG VALLEY CROWDS...

Ed.'s Note: Ever since the COVID-19 crisis began about a year ago this coming March, we've grown used to lines to get food, fuel and now vaccines. It's getting to the point – such as these scenes yesterday in Brownsville – that people lined up for entire blocks to get a hot drink and food at McDonalds, and fuel at local Stripes and gasoline stations. 

But while the shortage of food can be ascribed to rolling electricity blackouts where people without gas appliances and without lights had to buy their hot food from restaurants, the shortage of fuel, authorities say, is purely a man-made scare.

The panic buying quickly spread throughout the Rio Grande Valley, not just in Brownsville. This led some public officials to urge calm for panicking motorists who lined up for blocks and emptied the fuel storage tanks on numerous distributors.

In Donna, lines of cars waiting to get into a gas station stretched for miles. Several gas stations in the Valley have even shut off pumps.

McAllen Mayor Jim Darling asked residents to stay calm.

"It's really unnecessary...tomorrow is going to be 50 degrees and we'll be better," Darling said. "It's going to take a little while to stock up things, just because of traffic and icing all over the state. But it's too bad that we had this panic buying and a lot of people shouldn't be out, dealing with coronavirus."