Terry McAuliffe has declared a state of emergency in an effort to stem the gasoline shortages already hitting other southern states after a Colonial Pipeline spill in Alabama.
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One of Colonial Pipeline Co.’s gas pipes ruptured September 9 near Birmingham, Ala., according to the Associated Press, and the leak is causing shortages from New York City to Atlanta.
The company increased its estimate of the spill’s size on Friday, saying it was between 252,000 and 336,000 gallons.
Colonial Pipeline is working to bypass a rupture in a segment of a key line that has caused gas shortages in the Atlanta area and states across the South.
Many drivers had to pull away from the gas pumps frustrated after discovering plastic bags over the fuel hoses – signifying that the station was out of gasoline. “While gasoline prices have drifted lower in parts of the country, it’s impossible to ignore the elephant in the room: one of the largest gasoline pipelines in the country is out of service and a band-aid is not going to fix the problems in the Southeast as a result”, said DeHaan. That’s up 12 cents from where it was last Monday.
The Citgo Village Food Mart, 5850 New Calhoun Highway NE., was one of the fortunate stores that got a delivery on Sunday morning and was selling at $2.42 a gallon. The damaged Line 1 can carry 1.2 million barrels of gasoline per day and runs from Houston to Greensboro, North Carolina.
Tiffany Wright, a spokeswoman for the motor club based in Charlotte, North Carolina, says the higher prices should be temporary until full fuel shipments resume.
The governors of North and SC issued executive orders created to ease the crunch on gasoline supplies and prices.
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal first issued the order on Wednesday for four days, but extended the lift on restrictions for another week Friday.
The governor said in the order that price-gouging is harmful to the social and economic welfare of Georgia residents, and issued the order prohibiting the practice.
It is believed that an amount between 250,000 gallons to more than 330,000 gallons of fuel leaked from the rupture.
Gas stations throughout central North Carolina are having to turn away customers because they are out of gas due to the leak in the Colonial Pipeline.
The company said it is shipping as much gasoline as possible on its distillate mainline, Line 2, in order to mitigate the impact of the pipeline that has been shut down.
Sunday many local gas stations were closed, which left long lines at the ones still open.
The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in Valdosta Saturday was $2.02, unchanged from seven days earlier, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report. The national average is $2.20.
The governor’s statement says state officials are working to make sure motorists are protected from excessive gas prices and minimize any interruptions in fuel supplies.
A number of service stations in Metro-Atlanta and north Georgia had run out of gas. The worker doesn’t know when they’ll get a refill.
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About the company: Colonial pumps more than 100 million gallons of fuel daily to markets stretching from Texas to NY across a network stretching more than 5,500 miles. Fuel supplies in at least five states are threatened by a gasoline pipeline spill in Alabama, and the U.S. Department of Transportation has ordered the company responsible to take corrective action before the fuel starts flowing again.
