While Wanaka enjoyed blue skies this week during the wintry blast over much of Otago, the fallout from impassable roads created "bedlam" in the town.
Fuel delivery trucks were unable to make some scheduled long-haul runs, with Caltex Wanaka running out of 95-octane petrol on Sunday evening and 91 about 9am on Monday.
Wanaka BP Service Station manager Tony Myers said that when the news spread the whole town was running out of fuel "you can imagine what happened. We just had queues and queues ... and as soon as people came down off the skifields it was bedlam."
The BP petrol and diesel supplies ran out by 7pm on Monday and staff began directing customers to Lake Hawea Motors until Caltex was eventually restocked early yesterday.
Mobil and Shell truck stops in Wanaka still had fuel, but only customers with pin-encoded fuel cards could access it.
"No fuel" signs remained in place at BP until about 4.30pm yesterday when a delivery truck arrived.
Caltex Wanaka owner Matt Davison understood Chevron was busy making deliveries to other service stations throughout the region that were also low on fuel yesterday, which was "going to cut us short again".
He expected his petrol supplies to run out for a second time this morning, with another delivery not due until tonight.
"People are stocking up, which is bad in a way too, because that puts the system under more pressure."
Demand on fuel supplies in Wanaka was compounded with school holidays and the peak ski season, so there "wasn't so much of a buffer zone" before the delivery delays, Mr Davison said.
Chevron spokeswoman Sharon Buckland confirmed the company was still "struggling" to maintain regular delivery schedules in the lower South Island yesterday because of hazardous driving conditions into Central Otago.
Neither Mr Davison nor Mr Myers could recall any other occasion when both Wanaka's main service stations had run out of petrol.
