The United States East Coast is currently experiencing immense panic due to the fuel shortage caused by a cyber attack on one of the main pipelines. The colonial pipeline is the largest pipeline in America and provides nearly half of the gasoline to the east coast. 

  The Wall Street Journal reports the gasoline demand across the United States was up about 20 percent this week compared to last and in some states, that demand jumped to 40 percent. 

 As a result, people on the east coast are scrambling to fill up their gas tanks causing long lines at the pump. As of May 12 nearly 72 percent of Raleigh’s gas stations reported running out of gas according to GasBuddy.

  A Sanderson High School junior, Olivia High expressed her feelings about the crisis by relating it to the COVID-19 toilet paper shortage, “People have to stop panic-buying like they did with toilet paper, and only buy what they need at the time.”

 High continued her thought by saying, “I am scared because I do have a car and have to worry how much I drive right now, but I think we will get it fixed soon.”

  Wake County Public School System announced on Thursday that May 14 will be a remote learning day due to the shortage. Teachers and students work from home, much like the start of the 2020-2021 school year. 

 Automobiles are not the only form of transportation that is suffering amidst the attack. The issue is beginning to have an effect on air travel. 

  Senior Ethan Page also saw the connection to the toilet paper shortage in 2020 and said, “It’s mostly just typical overreacting akin to the toilet paper scramble. It’ll be back in a week and we’ll forget about it the week after.”

  American Airlines announced changes in schedules in order to add refueling stops in order to reach its longer routes. 

  Bloomberg reported the hackers took around 100 gigabytes of data from the colonial pipeline in just two hours. The FBI has confirmed that a hacker group in Russia called the “DarkSide” is thought to be behind the attacks. 

  During a White House Briefing on May 10, President of the United States Joe Biden claimed, “I’m going to be meeting with President Putin. So far there is no evidence from our intelligence people that Russia is involved, although there is evidence that the actors’ ransomware is in Russia.”  

 The president closed that thought by saying, “They have some responsibility to deal with this.”

  Many people are speculating that everything will soon be back to normal and the issue will be resolved but as of now there is no hard answer to when this crisis will end.