As people ran to gas pumps in a pre-pandemic, toilet paper and Lysol spray-like panic across most of the East coast, Colonial Pipeline announced Wednesday afternoon that they were back online.
The key pipeline shut down Friday after alleged Russian hackers encrypted its data and blackmailed the company to restore access.
The company said, “it will take several days for the product delivery supply chain to return to normal” and service will likely continue to be interrupted.
“Colonial will move as much gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel as is safely possible and will continue to do so until markets return to normal,” Colonial said.
As of Wednesday, over 17% of stations in Georgia and Virginia were empty, governors in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia declared states of emergency and took steps took steps to relax fuel transport regulations to ease cost at the pump, according to the Washington Post.
Colonial supplies 45% of the East Coast’s fuel.
Related
Phil Flynn, senior energy analyst at The PRICE Futures Group and a Fox Business Network contributor, tells hosts Charles Feldman and Mike Simpson of the In-Depth podcast, that "America is being held hostage" by these pipelines.
"We joke about hacking, but this is a major threat to our security and to our economy. It goes beyond just gasoline prices, it really is a threat to our national infrastructure an it's going to have to be dealt with," Flynn says.
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