“I just can’t imagine Georgia without gasoline for the next three days, you know, that would be bad”. Colonial Pipeline started working on building a bypass line on Saturday, but has not said when the replacement might be operational.
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People with the pipeline said it would construct a temporary one which will bypass the damaged section.
Environmentalist David Butler said no fuel made it into the nearby Cahaba River.
The pipeline has been closed after a spill of roughly 250,000 gallons was discovered in Shelby County, Ala.
Bentley said Colonial Pipeline’s incident command center at Renaissance Ross Bridge in Hoover reminds him of emergency operations headquarters when the state is dealing with tornadoes, hurricanes or ice storms. Tanker trucks like those used to haul fuel were parked around the property, and a steady stream of trucks came and went through the gate.
Gov. Robert Bentley planned to tour the site Monday before being briefed on the response and remediation efforts by officials from Colonial Pipeline, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management and the Alabama Emergency Management Agency. The company says spilled gasoline is being taken to the storage facility for. States in the Northeast will be the last affected, so they should not see a major rise in prices, said gas price analyst Patrick DeHaan.
While Komarek expects the prices to go back down sometime in the near future, drivers say the surprised jump will still hit them where it hurts.
One North Carolina man tweeted Sunday that he found 11 stations that were without fuel before finding one with gasoline.
Leon’s Budhani said the price of gas at his store increased in the wake of the shortage but was still in the $2.50 range.
“I think what we’ll see is gas prices move up, particularly among the independents, because supplies are not as robust as normal”. He just returned from a road trip to Louisiana, where he helped people after the floods there, he said.
“I tried getting gas yesterday and a lot of the stations had no gas at all, except diesel”, Wargo said Monday.
Other states that have been hit by the pipeline rupture include SC and Virginia. Recent Oklahoma price averages for regular self-serve gasoline on selected days.
According to AAA North Carolina, the average price of regular gas in Wilmington on Monday afternoon was at $2.166, up from an average price of $2.052 last Monday. But the effects will be felt largely by Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, the Carolinas and Virginia.
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Reports from the Southeast, includingTennessee are conflicting, some say gas supplies are running low, while others say there is enough gas to meet demand.
