Brandon Balkcom fills up his motorcycle as cars line up at a Citgo in Atlanta, Georgia on May 11, 2021. [Photo/Agencies]
Gasoline stations from Florida to Virginia were running on empty as motorists made a run on gas as the closure of the US largest fuel pipeline entered its fifth day Tuesday after an alleged ransomware attack.
Officials urged customers not to hoard gasoline as Colonial Pipeline, headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, has forecast that it will need until the weekend to substantially restore operations of the 5,500-mile pipeline network that supplies nearly half of the East Coast s fuel.
The pipeline daily transports more than 100 million gallons of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and heating oil, or roughly 45 percent of fuel consumed on the Eastern Seaboard between the Gulf Coast and the New York metropolitan area.
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As drivers line up at gas stations on the East Coast in the aftermath of a cyberattack on a vital fuel pipeline, GasBuddy has been a go-to app for finding the nearest spot to fill up. We will keep checking in the background and, as soon as the site comes back, you will automatically be served the live version, the message read.
That message was removed from the site as of Wednesday afternoon.
GasBuddy allows users to find the cheapest prices for gas but has risen in popularity because of a crowdsourced fuel availability tracker that helps users find which stations still have gas. Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at the fuel-savings app, said users can go directly to tracker.gasbuddy.com to find more information on fuel availability.