Panic buying and hoarding add to long lines and outages at gas stations as Colonial Pipeline shutdown drags on
May 12, 2021 / 6:56 AM
/ CBS News
Panic buying leads to gasoline shortage
The company that runs the Colonial Pipeline hopes to restore much of its operations by the end of the week. Until then, reports CBS News' Laura Podesta, government officials and industry experts are sounding the alarm about drivers making matters worse by panic buying and hoarding gas.
S&P's Oil Price Information Service said more than 1,000 stations were experiencing shortages, The Associated Press reported. "A lot of that is because they're selling three or four times as much gasoline that they normally sell in a given day, because people do panic. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy," S&P analyst Tom Klouza told the AP.