NBC Chicago has been closely tracking gas prices since the War with Iran started. Prices have risen in every county across the Chicago area, but in Lake County, Indiana, a dramatic jump occurred over a recent three-day span.
Prices went up 37 cents between Wednesday and Thursday, then 38 more cents on Friday.
With the biggest refinery in the Midwest nearby, some may be expecting to pay lower prices.
It used to be that way in Hammond, but that’s not the case any longer.
“It’s ridiculous man…I don’t know why we go and mess with those folks,” resident Tyrone Hawk said.
On one corner along Calumet Avenue, the prices near the $5 a gallon mark and Hawk, who depends on his car for work, is looking for ways to economize.
“I don’t eat out that much anyway,” he said. “I cook at home. I used to eat out, but you know, everything is so high these days. You go home and cook a decent bologna sandwich or something.”
The rapid rise in prices was so sharp that Gas Buddy, the gas price-tracking website, sent out an alert on its social media channels.
“It’s just so hard,” Brittaney Cotledge said. “Believe it or not, yesterday I was at a gas station, and I was there for 20 minutes. In 20 minutes, gas went up a dollar.”
Since March, gas prices in northwest Indiana have gone from a AAA average of $2.80 a gallon to $4.80 a gallon.
If you are fueling up a midsize SUV, like a Ford Explorer, that means you went from paying $56 for 20 gallons to $96 a tank. In other words, the extra cost at the pump is enough to buy more than eight Happy Meals or 11 Starbucks Grande drinks.
“I mean food, it went up a lot more,” Nichlas Ramos said. “Groceries went up, gas went up. “Everything is going up nowadays. It’s making it hard for a man who lives day by day with checks. I am just trying to make it by, its hard.”
One resident has even given up on his car entirely.
“I can’t afford gas,” Michael Barron said. “I am on a fixed income, so there is no way I can afford gas right now.”
