ATLANTA — As the Colonial Pipeline shutdown drags on through the week, Georgia and other states are starting to feel acute crunches at the gas pump.
Many people are "panic" buying, leaving a startling percentage of Atlanta area gas stations with little or no fuel.
In some areas, you can drive aimlessly around to gas station after gas station without any luck of refueling.
Thankfully, there are tools that can help you narrow your search. Before you do that, though, remember that experts caution that there's no need to hoard fuel - Colonial is expecting to restore operations to the pipeline by the end of the week, so if you've already got gas in your car, you should be able to make it for a few days until things are a bit more normal again.
If you are on empty, though, here's what you can do.
The website Gas Buddy has a tracker that's very simple to use: Just type in the city you want to search, and it'll bring up the real-time status of the gas stations there.
Use the Gas Buddy tracker here (UPDATE: The site has crashed momentarily, with many people still frantically trying to fill up this morning.)
The tracker will pull up Google Maps for you, and you can narrow in your neighborhood and then click "Redo Search in This Area" above the map to filter things in closer to your home.
The gas stations will show up on the map with little markers in one of three colors: Green, yellow and red.
Green means the station has gas - the best time is to go early in the morning after they've re-stocked overnight - while yellow means fuel options are limited. Red means they're out.