Near the end of last week I read some breaking news stories about a gasoline supply company having their computer system hacked. I didn’t care very much at the time, it seems like every week a bank, hospital, school district, or government agency has a failure in their computer system security.

It wasn’t until several days later, Tuesday May 11, when I saw photographs of vehicles lined up in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina outside of gas stations with panicked people in a frenzy to buy fuel, that I realized the magnitude of what had happened.

Colonial Pipeline Company supplies 45% of all fuel consumed in the Southeast United States. The attack on their computer system caused Colonial Pipeline to completely shut down its pipeline carrying fuel from Texas to the East Coast on Friday May 7. Within a day or two, residents of the Southeast U.S. began filling up their vehicles and gas cans over fear that there would be a shortage, which soon caused roughly 5%-7% of gas stations to run out of fuel.

In my opinion, maybe because I live in North Dakota, far away from the East Coast, the Main Stream Media did not hype or over emphasize this news story. I think that the MSM might have even downplayed what had happened. I get the impression that it was the citizens themselves which came to their own conclusion that they had better hurry up and go fill up their vehicles and gas cans. Realizing what could happen, thinking ahead, this was probably a smart thing for people to do, I don’t blame them.

What I do want to fault people for, is not realizing overall, that the more people and government protest and interfere with oil and gas pipelines, such as the Keystone XL Pipeline, the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Enbridge Pipeline, the more that they are guaranteeing there will be fuel shortages in the future.

I hope that everyone will watch what happens because of the Colonial Pipeline shut down, see how it affects people, and imagine what it would be like to not have enough fuel to make it to your job, drop your children off at school, drive a family member to their doctor’s appointment.

Why can’t people understand that blocking pipelines under construction and shutting down pipelines already in operation will lead to fuel shortages, and what the consequences will be?