BARRY COUNTY, Mich. — As a result of the recent ice storm and the subsequent power outages, kerosene has been a hot commodity in Barry County.
“Kerosene’s a little harder to find,” Mike Cain, a local resident said.
The fuel is selling like it’s going out of style. Cain is among the tens of thousands of Barry County residents that’s been left in the dark by the worst ice storm to hit the area in 10 years.
He lost power Saturday night in his Hastings area home and had to pull out the old kerosene gas can to try and keep warm.
“[It’s] for my kerosene heaters, keep the house warm for everybody, so the pipes don’t freeze and everything’s good,” Cain said.
Everything’s good if you manage to find kerosene. FOX 17 searched. The Barry County blackout caused some gas stations to run out of the fuel. A Speedway in Hastings ran out of kerosene as well as propane.
It seems more people need the fuel than what is available locally. An auto parts business had an influx of customers.
“Our number seller has been the gas cans,” Craig Kenyon, a manager said.
He added, “We’ve had customers here as far away from Nashville, north of here, looking for anything and everything.”
Red cans are for gasoline, yellow are for diesel, and blue are for kerosene which doesn’t come cheap at $4.29 a gallon.
That’s a dollar more than the price for regular unleaded gasoline which is used to fuel generators.
FOX 17 spotted many people with two or three red gas cans to fill up for theirs.
