Residents sent into panic about the possible lack of fuel in NC
Anthanee Doyle, Staff Writer
Wingate Students, Faculty and staff drivers panic about riots, pot holes, glass in the street or maybe even animals but do not panic about gas. If you have been under the impression that gas prices have gone insane you’re wrong. Yes, The Carolinas have been effected by a big gas leak.
This leak caused many gas stations to higher their prices a little if they have not yet suffered from an outage. Good news, the company has restarted their gasoline pipeline meaning everything should go back to normal soon.
September 9th in Shelby county Alabama an employee for Alabama Surface Mining Commission noticed the strong odor of gasoline from the pipeline where he then discovered a massive leak. The gasoline company estimates that the colonial pipeline that services the east coast leaked between 252,000 to 336,000 gallons of gasoline.
This colonial pipeline was built in 1963 and the company estimates that is supplies over 40 percent of the east coasts gasoline. This Tuesday Colonial Pipeline spokesman Bill Berryrews got the green light to begin cleaning up the gasoline. Since then over 800 employees have been working hard in Alabama to restart the pipelines.
The Charlotte Observer said that the average price of a gallon of gas in their area is 19 cents higher than last week’s prices. Wingate Universities basketball coach Markus Kirkland said “ I always try to get gas in SC because the gas is cheaper, but even the gas in an border city was gone, but my routine didn’t change much”.
When he drives from Indian land, South Carolina to Wingate; Kirkland said “ 3 out of every 4 gas stations that I passed, over both states, were out of gas. Luckily I filled up before the crisis”
AAA spokeswoman Tiffany Wright reported that these gas outages have made drivers feel the need to go fill up all at once. If demand increases so does the price of gas. North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory expresses to the people not to fill up their tanks unless they need to. These actions are only making gas prices higher.
In the next few days gas prices and availability should be back to normal if everyone keeps calm. So Wingate don’t be scared of this unfortunate event.
Edited by: Sara Gunter
Wingate Triangle 