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Aug

2008

4:32pm, EDT

Price hike

By Janet Shamlian, NBC News correspondent

After veering dangerously close to empty, I finally found gas near the Louisiana border. $3.95 a gallon seemed high until I went to pay the owner and saw what he was charging for water.. $10.99 a case! Talk about a mini-mart robbery!

We're now at a command center along Interstate 10, where the water is free and the license plates on the ambulances are from as far away as Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Colorado. Hundreds of buses are stacked here like dominoes, awaiting deployment to New Orleans and the unknown.