Jesse Scheckner
Florida gasoline prices rose across most of the state last week amid historic flooding in South Florida that led to widespread gas outages, requiring fuel supplies to be reallocated from other regions.
While those outages have now mostly been resolved, motorists by Sunday paid $3.72 per gallon — 15 cents more than the week prior and a new 2023 high.
The flooding began more than a week ago and prevented fuel trucks from accessing gasoline terminals at Port Everglades, which normally provides about 40% of Florida’s fuel and the majority of gas allocated to filling stations in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach.
Workers brought in gas from hubs in Tampa, Orlando, Port Canaveral and Jacksonville to offset the shortage, but gas prices also shot up by double digits in those metro areas.
While gas increased markedly in Florida, the national average price went unchanged.
According to Mark Jenkins, spokesperson for AAA — The Auto Club Group, there is reason to be optimistic that gas prices won’t remain as high in Florida for long.
“Oil prices dropped to a three-week low and gas prices began drifting lower through the weekend,” he said in a statement. “There’s hope that the upward pressure on pump prices will begin to ease as supplies stabilize around the state.”
Gas prices Sunday were most expensive in the West Palm Beach-Boca Raton area, at $3.88 per gallon. The second-highest price point for petrol was in Port St. Lucie and Naples, where motorists paid $3.77 per gallon on average.
By Monday morning, the average price at the pump in Florida fell by one cent to $3.71 per gallon. The least expensive markets were in Crestview-Fort Walton Beach ($3.38), Pensacola ($3.39) and Panama City ($3.40).
The national average, meanwhile, sat at about $3.67 per gallon, with motorists in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington paying the most.
