Triangle Residents Flock to Gas Pumps as Gov. Cooper Preaches Patience

North Carolina residents flocked to gas pumps this week amid concerns over a cyber-attack on the Colonial Pipeline, which delivers roughly 45 percent of fuel consumed on the East Coast.

Although the pipeline has since been manually restored, North Carolina officials are urging people not to panic-buy and stockpile gasoline.

“I have talked today with federal officials including Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and we have a full court press to get the Colonial Pipeline back up and fully operating quickly,” wrote Governor Roy Cooper on Twitter on Tuesday. “Report price gouging and please don’t rush to top off your tanks.”

Public officials said the sudden shortage and price increase in gasoline has more to do with panic-buying by consumers rather than the pipeline shutdown.

On Wednesday, lines were long at gas stations in Chapel Hill and Orange County. At the Circle K station by the University Place mall, lines stretched onto Fordham Boulevard as residents waited for gas.

This is the scene from Circle K by University Place in Chapel Hill. Lines for gas have spilled out onto Fordham Boulevard.

However, officials are urging residents not to rush out and top off their gas tanks. pic.twitter.com/akG9s05A0l

— WCHL & Chapelboro (@WCHLChapelboro) May 12, 2021

Patrick De Haan, who leads petroleum analysis with GasBuddy, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday morning more than 70 percent of gas stations in Raleigh and Durham were without gas. In addition, he added that North Carolina leads all states in terms of percent of stations without gasoline on the East Coast.

Gasoline Outages by state, percent of all stations without gasoline:
AL 7%
WASH DC 10%
FL 11%
GA 43%
KY 2%
MD 11%
MS 5%
NC 65%
SC 43%
TN 16%
VA 44%
WV 4%

— Patrick De Haan ⛽️📊 (@GasBuddyGuy) May 12, 2021

A search on tracker.gasbuddy.com shows that the majority of gas stations in Chapel Hill and Durham are labeled as yellow, meaning they have “limited fuel options.”

On Twitter, De Haan echoed state and federal leaders by encouraging people to wait out the situation — saying that panic-buying gasoline would only make the situation worse.

“We’re only a couple days away from restoration,” the fuel analyst wrote. “There is truly no reason to fill your tanks to the brim. You’re self inflicting more weeks of outages by not taking this seriously.”

Governor Cooper announced earlier this week that the Environmental Protection Agency has waived certain fuel requirements to increase fuel supplies to North Carolina in response to the pipeline shutdown.

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Triangle Residents Flock to Gas Pumps as Gov. Cooper Preaches Patience

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