KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) -- The price at the pump may be better than it was a week ago, but local gas retailers say they are still dealing with low supply, and it’s not just a problem in East Tennessee.

Other major cities across the Southeast are struggling with gas supplies.

Kentucky is the only neighboring state with a decent supply for their pumps. Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee are still operating on a tight supply.

Prices have come down here in town, but officials with the U.S. Department of Energy say there is still a lot of work to do at the refineries along the gulf coast to get things back to normal.

We saw it in Knoxville last week, and now there’s a gas shortage in several regions around East Tennessee.

Driver Aurora Prophet says, “I think they've actually been fairly stead, ours has gone up and down around theirs."

In Asheville, gas is hard to find, and long lines of people are waiting to get it at $4.18 a gallon.

In Atlanta, pumps are running low and the price is $4.24 a gallon.

Nashville is more than 60 cents higher than Knoxville with an average there of $4.10 a gallon.

DOE spokeswoman Healy Baumgardner says, “As a result of Ike, crude and Natural Gas remains shut-in as many refining and Natural Gas Facilities remain closed so there's no place to bring product."

Pilot officials say the fuel supply in East Tennessee remains tight, but all of the Knoxville Pilot stations are selling it at $3.39 a gallon.

The Downey Oil Company says they are still running out of gas at some of their BP Kenjo stations, and have actually taken gas from some pumps and sent it to others around town.

Driver Brianna Ridenour says, "I don't understand why they're so different, if they're all coming from the same place, I mean I understand its being shipped to different places but I think it should just be one stable price."

The entire region is suffering from low gas supply due to the colonial pipeline not running at full capacity from the Gulf of Mexico.

Baumgardner says, "Currently six of 17 of the refineries in the affected region are out. That is not a high number, originally it was 15."

But there are many factors still holding up refining.

Baumgardner says, "The most common being the extent of the damages to the actual refineries and lack of power and time of power restoration."

Department of Energy officials say it takes at least a week for a refinery to get up and running after all problems are fixed, so they're expecting it to be several more weeks before the gas supply will get back to normal for the region and for the market to balance back out.

Here's the latest from the U.S. Department of Energy in an emailed statement from spokeswoman Healy Buamgardner: