NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Last night I did a radio interview with a station out in California that wanted to talk about gas prices.

Why are they so high? Aren't the "speculators" behind this spike in oil prices? Aren't the gas station owners taking advantage of us?

For months oil traders and economists have been telling us that we were vulnerable to a "supply disruption" because demand keeps rising no matter how high prices go. Do traders speculate? Of course they do but that only takes the market so far unless the "real" buyers believe there's a reason to fear prices will continue to climb.

And we got a big reason this week -- refining, production, imports all nearly ground to a halt in the Gulf and no one knows how quickly it all comes back online.

Hurricane Ivan last year crimped refining capacity for weeks and its impact was only one-fifth of the damage Katrina has done according to a report by Sherry Cooper of BMO Nesbitt Burns in Toronto.

Are gas stations gouging?

If I were looking at wholesale gas prices over three bucks a gallon in the Gulf region and I might be worried about how much it would cost my gas station to refill its tanks this week and raise prices too.

Look in the mirror. We drive big SUVs. We use lots of electricity produced by lots of natural gas. We are our own worst enemy -- not the trader in the pits of the NYMEX or the small business owner on the corner.

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Kathleen Hays is Economics Correspondent for CNN. You can read more of her columns here.