This past weekend, my wife and I visited Charlotte, N.C., where we used to live. Charlotte's the kind of spread-out, suburban city where you really can't get by without a vehicle, even when you're in town for just a couple of days. (There's a new light rail being built, but only one line is finished.) So we rented a car.

Heading back to the airport, I needed to fill 'er up. (We took the "return full" option.) I pulled into one station at a major intersection, only to find the pumps covered with plastic bags and an "Out of Order" sign. Same story at the next station. And the next. Finally, I saw one with working pumps and managed to top off the tank. Good thing that I only wanted regular, though ... both of the premium grades were empty.

Three days later, a lot of those pumps are still running dry, and it's not looking pretty. From a report today in The Charlotte Observer, where I used to work:

More than a week after Hurricane Ike's strike, drivers across the Southeast are still bouncing between dry pumps and shuttered stations in a frustrating hunt for a fill-up - and they're starting to get angry.

There are stations shut down in Nashville, Tenn., long lines in Atlanta and even fights breaking out in bucolic Blue Ridge mountain towns. In between the soccer moms and NASCAR dads, you'll even find guys who play in the NFL waiting for gas.

North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley said today he is working with the major oil companies to seek the release of additional gasoline for western North Carolina.

"This is a temporary shortage," Easley said in a statement. "We have been assured by the oil companies that some supplies are on their way today, and larger additional supplies are expected through the pipeline very soon."

For the next few days, Easley said, consumers should take steps to conserve gasoline, such as carpooling and eliminating unnecessary trips.

"It's really ridiculous. You would have thought by now - four days into it - they would have sorted it out somehow," Ahmard Hall, 28, a fullback with the Tennessee Titans, said Tuesday morning as he waited in a Nashville suburb for his turn at the pump. "You have to go driving around town, wasting gas, to try to find gas."

Hurricane Ike shut down or reduced work at more than a dozen refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas, an area that accounts for about 20 percent of the nation's gas and diesel production. Among those affected was Exxon Mobil Corp.'s refinery in Baytown, east of Houston, and the nation's largest.

It won't get better until the Gulf Coast refineries disrupted by Ike - and before that, Hurricane Gustav - boot up and start filling the empty pipelines that lead to thirsty stations.

The Southeast has suffered gas shortages following hurricanes before. Driving home after covering Katrina, my photographer and I had to pull off at half a dozen highway exits in Alabama before we were able to fill up our SUV. We almost ran out. And of course, there were several-hour waits for fuel along the Gulf Coast that lasted for weeks after the storm.

Still, coming after a summer of skyrocketing gas prices, and with mounting concerns that easy oil's days may be numbered, a gas shortage like this can't help but look like a sign of things to come if we don't start seeking smart alternatives and moving America beyond oil ... fast.

Related: My colleague Ian Wilker over at NRDC's OnEarth magazine, who lives in western North Carolina, is still experiencing the shortage firsthand. Got your own stories or photos of gas lines or Ike's ongoing impact? Become a citizen journalist and report about them at Greenlight.