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On Wednesday night, the Colonial Pipeline Company, which operates the country’s largest pipeline system for refined oil, reported that the 5,500-mile system was finally up and running again, with service slated to return to normal by week’s end. It had been four days since the pipeline went down in a historic—and frightening—ransomware attack.
And yet, as of Thursday morning, cars continued to snake around gas stations up and down the Eastern seaboard, waiting their turn to fill up at the tank. Turns out that if you tell people something is threatening their petroleum supply, they will freak out and buy a lot of it. The National Association of Convenience Stores reported Wednesday that stations are doing two to four times their usual business, with some retailers clearing several days’ worth of gas—around 16,000 gallons per station—in a few hours. It’s the kind of purchasing behavior the industry usually sees around hurricanes, says Jeff Lenard, the association’s vice president of strategic industry initiatives.