Enlarge By Greg E. Latza for USA TODAY Allen Kleinschmit, who runs the Pioneer Seed distribution center in Allen, Neb., drives about 100,000 miles per year to test soil and give irrigation advice to local farmers. GAS PRICES: THE HARDEST HIT GAS PRICES: THE HARDEST HIT Enlarge Source: Oil price Information Service/Wright Express, USA TODAY map by Paul Overberg, graphic by Julie Snider Estimated monthly fuel costs as a percentage of household income: CALCULATE YOUR GAS COSTS CALCULATE YOUR GAS COSTS JOIN THE DISCUSSION JOIN THE DISCUSSION The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline is rising fast. How has the price affected you? Join the discussion at USA TODAY's Fuel Forum to swap stories and money-saving tips with fellow readers. FORKS OF SALMON, Calif.  The price of gas isn't an annoyance here. It's a calamity. Peggy Hanley uses a generator that burns a gallon of diesel fuel every hour —at about $5 a gallon— to power Forks General Store, the only place to buy groceries for miles around. There's no electric service, so Hanley, the owner, uses the generator to run eight refrigerators, nine freezers, lights and two ice machines for the store, which has been in a trailer since a fire destroyed the original building in 1994. There are no utilities and no public transportation in this unincorporated town of a couple hundred people along a narrow road that winds through the mountains 314 miles north of Sacramento. Many people here buy gas for their vehicles and gas or diesel for generators that power their homes. "I'm scared to death" of rising fuel prices, Hanley says. At the store, the hub for visiting whitewater rafters and residents of other isolated towns, gas cost $5.30 a gallon on a recent day when the national average was $4.07. This community may be an extreme example of how rising gas prices are hitting rural Americans particularly hard, but people in small towns from Maine to Alaska are in a similar bind as those here. Soaring gas prices are a double-whammy for many rural residents: They often pay more than people who live in cities and suburbs because of the expense of hauling fuel to their communities, and they must drive greater distances for life's necessities: work, groceries, medical care and, of course, gas. Meanwhile, incomes typically are lower in rural areas, making increasingly high gas prices an especially urgent concern. Rural households also are more likely to have older, less fuel-efficient vehicles such as pickups, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) says. The average age of a vehicle in a rural household: 8.7 years, compared with 7.9 years for an urban vehicle. Rural residents do more driving, too — an average of 3,100 miles a year more than urban dwellers, the FHWA says. A May survey by the Oil Price Information Service (OPIS), a fuel analysis company, and Wright Express, a company that collects data on credit card transactions, found that people in rural areas spend as much as 16.02% of their monthly family income on gas, while people in urban areas of New York and New Jersey spend as little as 2.05%. "The people who can least afford this are getting hit the worst," says Glen Falk, retail pricing manager at OPIS. "These are people who can't telecommute or carpool or use public transportation or any of the other things that people in metro areas can do to ease the pain." Leaving town to get groceries When the only gas station in Allen, Neb., closed last summer, a gallon of gas cost $2.56, according to prices posted on two abandoned pumps. Since then, Allen's 411 residents have been driving 11 miles to Wakefield or 28 miles to South Sioux City to fill up. PHOTO GALLERY: Learn more about Allen, Neb. Allen's grocery store went out of business last August, forcing people to shop in South Sioux City or 21 miles away in Wayne. Doctors, dentists and other essentials also require a road trip. The nearest movie theater is in Wayne. "You have to leave town for about everything," says Jerry Schroeder, an insurance agent who has lived in Allen for all of his 57 years. He recalls when the farming town, founded in 1891 as a railroad stop, had four grocery stores, four gas stations, two banks, a doctor, two farm equipment dealers and a mortuary. Now Schroeder often parks his gas-guzzling Dodge pickup, which he calls "the last truck I'm ever going to own," and uses his wife Donna's Mercury Grand Marquis. It gets 25 miles per gallon. "We're all going to have to change," he says. There's still a school, restaurant, day care center and bank in Allen, but about three-fourths of the residents commute to jobs out of town. Security National Bank president Rob Bock and other local leaders say a gas station is key to the town's survival. Residents formed a corporation and hope to open a gas station/convenience store later this year on the site of the old station. "Even in a bedroom community, people need the basic core services," Bock says. "We want to maintain school enrollment and property values." Elizabeth Macrander, 24, has worked at the bank in Allen since November. For the first few months, she drove to work every day from Sioux City, Iowa, filling up her Mercury Mountaineer (14-15 mpg) every two days. "I didn't have a paycheck left," she says, so in May she bought a house in Allen. Even with a house payment, she's saving money since cutting her commute, Macrander says. She drives her 10-month-old daughter, Jordan, to day care 5 miles out of town daily and carefully plans other travel. On her next trip to Sioux City, she'll visit her parents and sister, buy groceries and gas and hit Wal-Mart for cleaning supplies. "You make the list, and you get everything done at once," she says. It's more difficult for Allen Kleinschmit to pare gas usage. He runs the Pioneer Seed distribution center in Allen, tests soil and gives irrigation advice to area farmers. That adds up to 100,000 or so miles every year on his Chevy Silverado truck, which gets 7 or 8 mpg if he's hauling equipment. He drives 25 miles to work from Coleridge. Don Schmidt, superintendent of Allen Consolidated Schools, budgeted $37,500 for fuel in the 2008-09 school year, up from $25,000 this year. Higher gas prices make it more difficult to recruit teachers and coaches, he says, and field trips to the Omaha zoo 120 miles away and other destinations are at risk. The OPIS survey said Dixon County residents spend an average of $198.82 a month on gas, 6.44% of their monthly income. Shelly Jones quit her job in Sioux City after moving to Allen with her husband, Jay, and their three kids because the commute was so expensive. This summer, they're using their Big Country camper less often and stockpiling food and milk in the extra refrigerator in their garage to reduce grocery runs. High gas prices make Jones angry and worried about the future of the town she loves. "You're almost forcing the rural communities to shut down," she says. Jobs scarce, money tight Brett Denight, 34, bought a house in Sawyers Bar, Calif., a wide spot on the mountain road with a few houses, a couple of years ago. Like the Forks General Store a few miles away, he has no electric service. He installed three solar panels on his roof, but a diesel generator runs his washing machine and the power tools he uses to build cabinets and other carpentry work. The generator consumes a gallon of fuel every eight hours. Gas has always been expensive around here, Denight says, but he's had to alter his routines since it hit the $5 mark. When he drives the 54 miles to Yreka, he stocks up on food and other supplies. "You're always asking people to pick things up for you if they're going to town," he says. He visits his girlfriend in Eureka, a 124-mile drive one way, less often. When he buys gas, he also fills up a 40-gallon tank that sits on the back of his truck. This part of Northern California, near the Oregon border and bisected by the Klamath and Salmon rivers, is wild and beautiful, but it's too isolated to attract many tourists except for rafters and people searching for Big Foot. Many of the small towns were once gold-mining camps, then centers of the timber industry. Both businesses are mostly gone now, and jobs are scarce. Siskiyou County's unemployment rate was 8.7% in May, when the national rate was 5.5%. The OPIS study said county residents pay $183.11 a month for gas, or 7% of monthly family income. People come from miles around to buy gas and groceries in Happy Camp, population 1,110. At Connor Cardlock, the only gas station, gas and diesel cost more than $5 a gallon. Except for the hours between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., customers must use credit cards to buy gas. People who don't have credit cards arrive with friends who do and fork over cash to compensate them. T.J. Day, 43, a maintenance worker for a local tribe, shakes his head with disgust as he fills up. He figures it will cost him $40 worth of gas to drive 70 miles to Yreka and 70 miles back. "You can't afford to go anywhere anymore," he says. At Parry's Market, employee Dan McCarthy, 50, says the store pays 2-3 cents more each week for almost every item it stocks because of rising freight costs. "Where do you catch a break?" he asks. 'It's very frightening' The situation looks even more dire to Karen Derry and Nadine McElyea. They work at Happy Camp's Family Resource Center, which provides emergency assistance, mental-health outreach and other services. McElyea worries that senior citizens in remote areas could die if they neglect their medical needs because of the high cost of getting around. Some poor residents and senior citizens come to the center because they're running out of food, she says. In the past few weeks, calls from people needing medical attention and help paying utility bills have soared, says Derry, the center's director. "I worry a lot, especially about the elders," she says. "It's very frightening." Jodi Henderson, who works for Happy Camp's volunteer ambulance service, is alarmed, too. Reimbursements from the state dropped 10% Tuesday, creating a gap in funds to offset emergency runs to Yreka, which cost at least $1,200 each. The service has two paid employees, 13 volunteers and two ambulances. The one used most often has 225,000 miles on it and gets about 8 miles per gallon. Forty-four miles south of Happy Camp at the senior center in Orleans, supervisor Babbie Peterson sees the concern in the eyes of the elderly who come for lunch every day. She frets that she'll lose the volunteers who cook and serve the meals and deliver them to the house-bound. She dreads the inevitable breakdowns of the center's furnace or refrigerators because service people drive two hours from Eureka to get here "and they charge a $500 travel fee." Frank Woodman, 79, who came to the senior center for lunch with his mother-in-law Mary Silva, 93, calls gas prices "terrible." "At our age, we have to go to the doctor quite often," he says. "That's 38 miles each way, and you always think about how much it's costing in gas. I know people who don't bother going, even when they know they need to." Shirley Reynolds, 73, who drives 160 miles a month to pick up and deliver supplies for a food bank, says she knows seniors who "haven't been in Eureka for six or seven months. They can't afford it." Reynolds drives a Chevy pickup that gets 15 mpg. "I parked my Cadillac six months ago," she says. Back at the Forks General Store, Hanley cringes when she's asked how much higher gas prices might go. "I don't see any end, to be honest," she says. "I think this country is headed into a depression." Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more