Colonial Pipeline has restarted its pipeline operation, according to U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and the company.
Granholm said Colonial’s CEO told her operations were restarting at 5 p.m. Wednesday.
Colonial Pipeline said it will take several days for the product supply chain to return to normal, according to reporter Jennifer Bellamy.
The Southeast entered yet another day of gas shortages Wednesday.
All across the Southeast, long gas lines and empty pumps greeted drivers. North Carolina, according to WXII, has the highest percentage of gasoline outages on the East Coast. According to GasBuddy, about 65% of all gas stations in North Carolina were without fuel Wednesday afternoon.
Cities that are most impacted by gas shortages, according to CNN, are Pensacola, Florida (73%); Raleigh, North Carolina (72%); metro Charlotte, North Carolina (71%); and Atlanta (nearly 60%).
A fight was captured on video in Knightdale, North Carolina, as people waited in line for gasoline. More than 70% of gas stations in Charlotte, North Carolina, had run out of fuel Wednesday morning, according to GasBuddy, which has launched a fuel tracker app in eight Southeastern states. The app also is reporting 25% of North Carolina gas stations have run out of fuel.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency Tuesday night to help his state deal with gas shortages, while some of his state’s counties were among those receiving fuel waivers, along with Alabama, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper urged people Wednesday to only buy gas if their tank is low and to report any instances of price gouging.
Cooper declared a state of emergency Monday, initiating fuel waivers that make it easier to transport fuel into the state.
The pipeline runs from the Gulf Coast to the New York metropolitan region, but states in the Southeast are more reliant on the pipeline for fuel. Other parts of the country have more sources to tap. For example, a substantial amount of fuel is delivered to states in the Northeast by massive tankers.
“What you’re feeling is not a lack of supply or a supply issue. What we have is a transportation issue,” said Jeanette McGee, spokeswoman for the AAA auto club. “There is ample supply to fuel the United States for the summer, but what we’re having an issue with is getting it to those gas stations because the pipeline is down.”
A large part of the pipeline resumed operations manually late Monday.
However, the disruption is taking place at the time of year when Americans begin to become more mobile, especially as the nation emerges from the pandemic.
The national average price for a gallon of gasoline ticked above $3 for the first time since 2016 on Wednesday, according to the AAA auto club. Prices begin to rise around this time every year, and the AAA auto club said Wednesday that the average price hit $3.008 nationally.
“You go to some states, and you’re going to see much higher increases, especially in the South, because that’s where you’re seeing the largest impact in terms of strain of gasoline, or strain of people,” McGee said.
The AAA expects more than 37 million people to travel at least 50 miles from home during the Memorial Day weekend, up 60% from last year, which was the lowest since AAA began keeping records in 2000.
The White House said Wednesday that the Department of Transportation is now allowing Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia to use interstate highways to transport overweight loads of gasoline and other fuels under existing disaster declarations.
The department’s Maritime Administration completed a review of potential actions available under the Jones Act, a U.S. maritime law that requires shipments between U.S. ports, including fuel, to be moved by American-flagged ships.
The Department of Homeland Security is prepared to review any temporary Jones Act waiver requests from companies if there is not sufficient capacity to get to regions suffering fuel shortages, said White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Correction: A previous version of this story said Colonial Pipeline made an announcement about the DarkSide ransom. The company has not issued a statement about the ransom. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution regrets the error.
