Attack prompts gas panic

The Southeastern part of the United States is facing a gas shortage after a Russian cyberattack took down the Colonial Pipeline over the weekend, prompting motorists to crowd stations in Sampson County and across North Carolina and buy up supplies that in most cases went from dwindling to gone by Tuesday.

The Colonial Pipeline has been shut down for five days as of Tuesday following a ransomware attack that resulted in temporary shutdown. The pipeline delivers close to half of the gas for the Eastern Seaboard.

“It may cause a disruption in the delivery of refined petroleum products including but not limited to fuel oil, diesel, jet fuel and gasoline,” said Governor Roy Cooper in his executive order released on Monday. “Today’s emergency declaration will help North Carolina prepare for any potential motor vehicle fuel supply interruptions across the state and ensure motorists are able to have access to fuel.”

For Lynette Knowles, this is going to impact her entire family.

“My son works for a local landscaper, and they are not going to be able to run mowers and weed eaters.”

Her husband, who is self-employed, travels every day to his machine shop.

“He works on ambulance motors, tractors, motors for cars,” said Knowles. “He said to me yesterday ‘If I can’t get to work, I can’t get to work.’”

That puts other people in a bind that are needing their motors fixed.

“It is going to impact us a lot,” said Thomas Bennett, who lives in Salemburg. “We won’t be able to go set up and sell our stuff to help get our 7-week-old to Duke Children Hospital for his needs.”

Bennett works independently in sales, dealing in everything from home goods to furniture. They rarely set up in the same place, and often go to vendor events. There’s a good amount of travel involved in what he does, between picking up from suppliers to setting up in surrounding counties.

“Because we don’t have work, we can’t bring any income in,” he said.

Bennett’s son is currently having to go to Duke Children’s Hospital on a regular basis for his medical condition. The current expectation is that service will be restored by Friday on the majority of the pipeline, and that there’s not a reason to panic.

“I’m a stay-at-home mom,” said Carrie Batchelor. “My fiancé luckily has a work truck and gas provided by the company so in that aspect, so we’re okay.”

Her concerns go further than that, with her family expecting to take a trip out of town soon.

“As far as recreational, we are driving to Tennessee in 14 days and are praying hard that this mess gets better because we’re going to need gas!”

Cooper’s executive order loosens the restrictions that are placed on commercial vehicles that are transporting fuel during this time, as has the federal government. There’s a lot of small pieces to the puzzle, and farmers have to have fuel.

“Regardless of what the ‘woke’ people think, food doesn’t come out of a box in the grocery store. It comes from farmers, truck drivers hauling it,” said Knowles.

“The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is taking steps to create more flexibility for motor carriers and drivers,” said the DOT in a release.

The Colonial Pipeline runs along the East Coast through to the Gulf Coast, from New Jersey to Houston, Texas.

“The FMCSA is issuing a temporary hours of service exemption that applies to those transporting gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other refined petroleum products….”

Ransomware attacks are where the perpetrator scrambles data, and the data can only be retrieved by paying them off. Even still if they are paid off, there’s nothing stopping it from happening again, and often the threat is that they will dump the data online for other criminal purposes.

“It’s a ripple effect, if people would just use good judgment,” said Knowles.

Knowles said people need to remember that the pipeline isn’t the only way to get gas to the gas station, that trucks have been hauling fuel for a long time.

“I think the panic mode is going to cause the biggest issue,” Knowles remarked.