Gas supplies are likely to remain tight into the weekend as nearly half of fuel stations in Chattanooga were empty on Thursday and a key pipeline was slowly restarting, according to GasBuddy.
Meanwhile, 14 price-gouging complaints have been filed this week, the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office said. Most of those are in East Tennessee, though none in the Chattanooga area, the office reported.
Allison Mac, a petroleum analyst for the company that tracks fuel availability and prices, said that the 49% of stations without fuel in the city on Thursday was up from about 37% a day ago.
“The pipeline is opening slowly in segments,” she said. “Normally it’s transporting 100 million gallons a day. It’s not just snapping a finger and it’s gushing through the pipeline.”
While more stations are without gas, those with fuel seemed less busy Thursday than in the past couple of days when a lot of panic buying set in.