


After Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines, there was a drastic fuel shortage. When gas stations are damaged or supplies can't reach affected areas, it means there's no fuel to run hospital generators or pump clean water. Aid agencies have long complained that the lack of gas and diesel following disasters hampers relief efforts.

NPR's Jason Beaubien reports that one small American nonprofit called the Fuel Relief Fund helps get petrol to people who need it most.

JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE: Immediately after the typhoon hit, all the gas stations in Tacloban were shut, along with everything else. Many of the stations were damaged. None had electricity. The storm had caused so much destruction that fuel wasn't even available on the black market. So when a couple of gas stations opened almost a week after the typhoon, people waited in long lines to fill jerry cans, plastic containers, Coke bottles and motorbikes with gasoline.

SEL RAGAS: They were here since four in the morning.

BEAUBIEN: At a Shell station on Real Street in Tacloban, the manager, Sel Ragas, says they're rationing the unleaded at just 1.5 liters per person. Essentially people were waiting three to four hours to get less than half a gallon of gas.

RAGAS: But the problem is that some of these people, they're selling it for 300 per liter. So we have our limitations.

BEAUBIEN: That markup of 300 pesos per liter is roughly six times the going rate. Even with these tight limits Ragas says she's worried her station is going to run out of gas before another truck can come to refill her tanks.

This problem seems to occur after every major disaster. In 2005, there was a severe shortage of gas in southern Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. Then a group of people involved in the oil industry in California decided to try to ease the gas crisis. So they sent a tanker to New Orleans and started giving away free fuel. Out of that, the Fuel Relief Fund was born.

TED HONCHARIK: We saw, you know, people standing in line for fuel and thought we'd do something about it.

BEAUBIEN: Now they're giving away fuel in the Philippines in areas hit by Typhoon Haiyan. Ted Honcharik, the chairman of the nonprofit, says the concept of his relief agency is simple: Quickly get fuel to people who desperately need it.

HONCHARIK: We're the only organization in the world that provides free fuel after a major disaster.

BEAUBIEN: His agency also gives fuel to any humanitarian group that needs it right now in Tacloban. Honcharik, however, says he hopes the relief groups can become self-sufficient in terms of fuel soon.

The Fuel Relief Fund doesn't have its own supertanker or a helicopter that drops oil barrels out of the sky. Honcharik raises money from small donors, people in the petroleum industry, anybody he can, he says. Then he buys fuel locally and tries to get it to where it appears most needed.

HONCHARIK: We try to locate the closest source of fuel to the disaster, because that way it's also cheaper and also it's going to get to them that much faster. So that's our initial objective. When we first got here there wasn't anything available. So we were - for the first 24 hours, we were trying to source fuel out of Cebu.

BEAUBIEN: Cebu is 150 miles away on another island. In the end, he was able to get access to fuel at a damaged Petron station in Tacloban itself.

The Fuel Relief Fund went into Haiti to distribute gas after the earthquake there in 2010. They went to Japan after the tsunami. And last year, they were passing out fuel in New York after that area was hit by Hurricane Sandy. The same way that other relief agencies serve the needs of disaster victims by giving them food or water or tents, Honcharik tries to help them get their lives jumpstarted again with free gas.

Jason Beaubien, NPR News.






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