May 12, 2021- 10:31 p.m.
More than 70 percent of the gas stations in Charlotte have run dry as panic-buying exacerbated fuel shortages throughout the Southeast in the aftermath of a hack that shuttered the Colonial Pipeline.
Roughly 60 percent of the stations in metropolitan Atlanta were also out of fuel Wednesday morning, according to Patrick De Haan, an oil analyst at GasBuddy.
At the state level, nearly 25 percent of the stations were without fuel in North Carolina, 15 percent in Virginia and Georgia, and 13 percent in South Carolina, De Haan said on Twitter.
Meanwhile, the national average for a gallon of gas surpassed $3 for the first time since 2014, according to AAA.
Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst at Raymond James, called the run on stations a “textbook example of a self-fulfilling prophecy.” He likened it to the onslaught of consumers who stocked up on toilet paper and bottled water in the early days of the pandemic.
“Some people hear a rumor or a news story about individual instances of fuel stations running out, they rush to buy extra fuel, perhaps more than they need, and the aggregate result is that this panic buying ends up creating the very shortage which people fear,” Molchanov said in an email to The Post.
As of Wednesday, governors in North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and Florida had declared states of emergency and taken steps to relax fuel transport rules to ease pain at the pump. But the run on gas stations is colliding with a shortage of truck drivers, compounding the logistical challenges as states try to fill in for the Colonial Pipeline, which supplies 45 percent of the East Coast’s fuel.
In Washington, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm had said that the Southeast could expect a “crunch” that would take several days to alleviate. She said Colonial Pipeline officials had told her that a decision on a “full restart” could come as soon as Wednesday evening.
“We have gasoline,” she said during a White House briefing. “We just have to get it to the right places. And that’s why I think the next couple of days will be challenging.”
The Colonial Pipeline system shut down Friday after hackers thought to be based in the former Soviet Union infiltrated servers and encrypted its data, demanding a fee to restore access. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was at the White House briefing, said American organizations have lost more than $350 million this year as a result of ransomware attacks.
Here’s what to know:
- The Colonial Pipeline system, which moves about 45 percent of the East Coast’s fuel, shut down Friday after hackers thought to be based in the former Soviet Union infiltrated servers and encrypted its data, demanding a fee to restore access.
- As of Tuesday, governors in North Carolina, Georgia and Virginia had declared states of emergency and taken steps to relax fuel transport rules to ease pain at the pump.
