U.S. capital running out of gas, even as Colonial Pipeline recovers
The U.S. capital was running out of gasoline on Friday, even as the country's largest fuel pipeline network ramped up deliveries following a cyberattack and Washington officials assured motorists that supplies would return to normal soon.
The six-day Colonial Pipeline shutdown was the most disruptive cyberattack on record, demonstratinghow vulnerable vital U.S. infrastructure is to cybercriminals.
Widespread panic buying continued two days after pipeline network restarted, leaving filling stations across the U.S. Southeast out of gas even in areas far from the pipeline. U.S. pump prices are at their highest in years, two weeks before the peak summer driving season kicks off, with traffic growing after the pandemic. The average national gasoline price has climbed to almost $3.04, the most expensive since October 2014, the American Automobile Association said.
On Friday gas station outages in Washington, D.C., climbed to 87%, from 79% the day before, tracking firm GasBuddy said. President Joe Biden assured motorists supplies should start returning to normal by this weekend.
"Most of these states/areas with outages have continued to see panicked buying, which is likely a contributing factor to the slow-ish recovery thus far," said GasBuddy's Patrick De Haan. "It will take a few weeks."
Colonial Pipeline announced late Thursday it had restarted its entire pipeline system linking refineries on the Gulf Coast to markets along the eastern seaboard.
Some states experienced modest improvements but still had a lot of gasoline outages. About 70% of gas stations in North Carolina were without fuel, with outages in around 50% of stations in Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia.
The hacking group believed responsible for the attack, DarkSide, said it had hacked four other companies including a Toshiba subsidiary in Germany
U.S. capital running out of gas, even as Colonial Pipeline recovers
I don’t watch the news because it extreme on both sides. I just want to prep for whatever is needed. I guess I missed this one. I am in Texas, but if I had known I would have kept a close eye on it. I am glad you were paying attention and made it home.
