ATLANTA — Even as Colonial Pipeline has restored operations to the major pipeline that fuels much of the East Coast, Georgia is not yet seeing a major shift in the shortage caused largely by panic-buying this week.
Gas Buddy's Patrick De Haan reported early Friday morning that things had barely budged in Georgia - from 50% of stations without fuel down just a tick to 49% overnight.
On Thursday night, Gas Buddy reported that 68% of metro Atlanta stations were without fuel, which was down slightly from highs of more than 70% earlier in the week.
The issue is a fairly uncomplicated one - gas moves slowly through the pipeline.
While the Colonial Pipeline system is back up and running, making fuel deliveries along its 5,500 miles of pipeline from Texas to New York, new fuel supplies are sent from Gulf refineries moving only about five miles per hour.
That means fuel sent through the pipeline at its originating point in southeast Texas yesterday wouldn't reach Atlanta until next Tuesday.
That's why experts such as De Haan have warned drivers that things may not really make a full return to normal until a couple weeks. It could last as late as through the Memorial Day weekend for supplies to totally normalize.
"Most of these states/areas with outages have continued to see panicked buying, which is likely a contributing factor to the slow-ish recovery thus far. It will take a few weeks," De Haan tweeted on Friday.