Gas shortages at the pumps are spreading from the South to the Mid-Atlantic states, where Virginia and the District of Columbia have become some of the hardest-hit areas following a cyberattack that forced a shutdown of the nation’s largest gasoline pipeline.
The tracking service GasBuddy.com on Friday showed that 86% of gas stations were out of fuel in Washington, D.C., more than half were out in Virginia and 42% of Maryland stations were dry.
More than 70% of stations were without gas in North Carolina, and more than half were tapped out in Georgia and South Carolina.
A gas station owner in Virginia said panic buying is the problem. “It’s like a frenzy,” Barry Rieger, who owns a gas station in Burke, Virginia, told WJLA-TV.