HAMPTON, Va. — Some gas stations in Hampton Roads were running out of gas Tuesday as people flocked to the pumps, reacting to the Colonial Pipeline shutdown.
The situation pushed Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam to issue a state of emergency. Executive Order 78 is in place to give fuel transportation waivers and funding for state and local governments to increase the gasoline supply.
The Colonial Pipeline, which carries gasoline from Texas to New Jersey (and supplies Virginia and North Carolina along the way), was hit by a Russian ransomware attack last Friday.
The company temporarily shut off the pipeline while they're working to free their IT software from the hackers. Colonial Pipeline said it expects to have everything working normally again by Friday.
There isn't a shortage of gas - it's all still sitting there in the pipeline - but there's been a huge surge in demand.
By 11 a.m., GasBuddy was reporting a 7.6% outage rate for Virginia, as panic-buyers stocked up on gasoline.
Diesel outages were at 4.9%.
The GasBuddy outage tracker was paused around 2 p.m., after experiencing "intense web and server traffic," according to a spokesperson.
Viewers were reporting stations out of gas in Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, and Suffolk Tuesday morning.
This is a developing story. It will be updated when the GasBuddy outage tracker is back online, or when 13News Now learns about more local gas stations that have run out of fuel.