People across the Southeast missed work and rearranged plans, as the shutdown of the largest U.S. fuel pipeline stretched into its fifth full day Wednesday.
Others embarked on drives, unsure whether they would have enough gasoline to reach their destination or make it home.
Colonial Pipeline Co., operator of the pipeline that runs from the Gulf Coast to New Jersey, closed the line last week after a ransomware attack. The company said it initiated the restart of pipeline operations late Wednesday, but cautioned that it would take several days for deliveries to return to normal.
In Knightdale, N.C., history teacher Justin Nolan called in sick Wednesday because he worried his Subaru didn’t have enough gas for the round trip between his home and the North Raleigh high school where he teaches epistemology, and online instruction wasn’t an option.
“ ‘It was a matter of, do I just go home, or do I sit in line for an hour and maybe run out of gas while idling?’ ”
“You’re reminded of your vulnerability,” said Mr. Nolan, 33 years old, who had tried unsuccessfully to fill up Tuesday afternoon. The gas stations he passed either had bags over the pumps or lines as long as 40 cars.
“It was a matter of, do I just go home, or do I sit in line for an hour and maybe run out of gas while idling?” he said. He went home.
He said he planned to head out overnight in hopes of spotting a fuel tanker resupplying a station. While his students will learn remotely Thursday, he has to be back in class Friday. If all else fails, he said, he hopes to borrow his wife’s Prius.
The closure has prompted motorists to pile into gas stations, straining supplies in the Southeast and lower mid-Atlantic region. Thousands of gasoline stations had run dry, according to data collected by price and fuel tracker GasBuddy. By midday Wednesday, GasBuddy said 43% of gas stations were out of fuel in Georgia; 65% had run dry in North Carolina; 43% in South Carolina; and 42% in Virginia.
Transportation and energy officials have urged consumers not to panic-buy fuel.
At the national AAA, field managers have seen an increase in calls from stranded drivers seeking fuel in the Carolinas, according to spokeswoman Jeanette Casselano.
Jaime Kurtz said her Mazda came close to running out of gas when she and her mother, Mary, visited Asheville, N.C., earlier this week, and she couldn’t find any gas locally. The pair took an Uber while traveling in Asheville on Wednesday, said Dr. Kurtz, a 43-year-old psychology professor at James Madison University. She added that she later paid $200 to obtain a 5-gallon can of gasoline for her car. It won’t get Dr. Kurtz and her mother all the way to their hometown of Charlottesville, Va., but it should last until they can find an open gas station, she said.
New York City resident Adam McMahon turned to social media for help planning a roughly 550-mile drive Thursday to Hope Mills, N.C., for the funeral of his boyfriend’s father, who died Saturday. “Do stations in Northern Virginia still have gas?” he asked on Twitter.
“I’m not worried about getting there. I’m not sure when we’ll come back,” said Dr. McMahon, 38, in an interview. He said he wants to fill up the tank as far south as possible, knowing they might not be able to refuel their friend’s borrowed car in North Carolina before their planned return to New York on Sunday.
Dr. McMahon teaches classes on homeland security at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J. “We talk about cyberattacks all the time,” he said. “This will be something we talk about next semester.”
—Cameron McWhirter contributed to this article.
Write to Scott Calvert at scott.calvert@wsj.com
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Facing Gas Shortage, Drivers Miss Work and Stress About Family Gatherings - The Wall Street Journal
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