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Colonial Pipeline Says More Fuel Should Be Arriving Soon

Courtesy of Gas Buddy
Gas Buddy, a fuel tracking app, shows which gas stations near Asheville have fuel. Yellow means the station has "limited fuel available."

Colonial Pipeline announced Thursday morning that fuel deliveries should be made by the end of the day. The pipeline restarted operations on Wednesday night after being out of service since a cyber-attack caused a shutdown.  

But those in the Asheville area and across North Carolina are still feeling the impact of the gas shortage.   

Leslie Garner Franklin of West Asheville told BPR that she was able to borrow a neighbor’s car to take her 4-year-old son to pre-school on Wednesday.  

 

“We have no gas - the emptiest of E - and again, lucky we know our neighbors well because our son would be unable to go to school if we weren't able to borrow their vehicle,” said Garner Franklin in an email.  

 

On Thursday morning, Garner Franklin said another neighbor dropped by to let her know that the gas station at the end of their street had gas.  

 

Buncombe County Assistant Superintendent Joseph Hough urged parents on Wednesday to call the school system for help if they don’t have enough gas to get their kids to school. 

 

“They just really need to call the school and work closely with the school before giving up on that. We’ve got some different things, bussing is just one of them, that we can do to help and assist, even if it means going back out with an additional load,” said Hough.  

 

Hough said the county is encouraging Buncombe County Schools employees to carpool, and that they have vehicles that can pick people up in a pinch. On Wednesday there were no plans to switch to remote learning, but the county will continue to monitor the situation. 

 

Experts, state and federal officials have explained that the shortages have been caused by panic buying.  

 

Principal Chief Richard Sneed of the Eastern Band of Cherokee was one of many local leaders to urge community members to stop panic buying.  

 

In an executive order, Sneed shut down non-essential tribal government operations and put a cap on fuel buying. Drivers were only allowed 10 gallons per vehicle per visit. Sneed said the limits on operations were to preserve fuel for emergency vehicles.  

 

In North Carolina, 69 percent of gas stations were out of gas as of Thursday afternoon, according to Gas Buddy, a fuel tracking app.  

Lilly Knoepp is Senior Regional Reporter for Blue Ridge Public Radio. She has served as BPR’s first fulltime reporter covering Western North Carolina since 2018. She is from Franklin, NC. She returns to WNC after serving as the assistant editor of Women@Forbes and digital producer of the Forbes podcast network. She holds a master’s degree in international journalism from the City University of New York and earned a double major from UNC-Chapel Hill in religious studies and political science.
Born and raised in Asheville, Megan worked as a reporter and a producer across the globe in Israel, London and Australia. Her reporting earned multiple awards, including the prestigious William Randolph Hearst Award.
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