With the Colonial pipeline shut down because of a foreign ransomware attack, people in Southern states have started hoarding gasoline, causing numerous gas stations to run out of fuel and stoking additional fears of gas shortages, the Washington Post reports.
The Colonial Pipeline Company was targeted with a ransomware attack Friday, leading it to shut down the pipeline it operates which supplies approximately 45% of the processed fuel used on the East Coast.
Analysts have called the resulting shortage a “self-fulfilling prophecy” as consumers lined up to fill car tanks and hoard gasoline in gas cans, even though officials state the flow of gasoline will resume by the weekend. One photo distributed by a wire service showed a couple filling a dozen 5-gallon gas cans and putting them in their minivan.
As of Wednesday morning, 71% of gas stations in Charlotte, North Carolina and 60% in Atlanta, Georgia reported they were out of gas. In Virginia, 15% of stations statewide said they had no fuel.
Biden Administration officials have stressed that there’s no gas shortage, and that the issue at this point is strictly one of distribution which can be resolved in short order. “We have gasoline,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm 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.”