Lee Klass is a long-haul trucker who has spent most of the past 50 years working behind the wheel. The cost of doing his job spiked dramatically this week.

Klass, 73, drives a Freightliner. He’s not hauling gasoline, but he’s feeling the pinch of gas shortages and higher prices in the wake of the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack. He’s paying $3.60 a gallon, far more than the $2.50 to $3 a gallon he paid during much of the pandemic.

“I start to freak out when it hits $4 a gallon, and I’m paying almost $1,000 to fill up a 240-gallon tank,” said Klass who was in Rhode Island on Wednesday and drives long hours daily. “For me to run across country in my truck, it takes about three fill-ups from the west coast to east coast, and that is a lot of money,” he added.

The gasoline crunch has added a new layer of difficulty to what was already considered a difficult job. The trucking industry — which requires long hours and tends to churn through workers, resulting in comparatively higher turnover — is the critical circulatory system for the economy, transporting consumer goods to and from warehouses, where they make their way to consumers’ homes. As the nation claws its way out of the pandemic recession, truck drivers are key to ensuring continued consumer spending, which contributes to nearly 70 percent of economic growth.

Tommy Forrister has been a trucker for 22 years. He transports gasoline for Morgan and Hunt Oil Company in Rome, Ga., and returns to his family in Cedartown, south of Rome, every evening. The current gas shortage has lengthened his workday. He’s been putting in 14-hour days, often confronting long lines just to refuel.

“It might be 30 minutes,” Forrister said. “It might be two hours. Depends on how many trucks are in front of you.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Forrister was hoping to pick up 8,000 gallons at a TransMontaigne terminal in Doraville, which is home to a number of tank farms. He’d been up since 2 a.m.