‘Everybody’s in a panic.’ Some stores around Kentucky report gas shortages.

Some stores in Kentucky were out of gas on Wednesday or getting short on supply, and others limited purchases as drivers worried about a major pipeline shutdown filled up tanks and containers.

At Main Street Deli and Cafe, a busy convenience store in Somerset, manager Mechelle Enda said the store had sold more gas on Monday and Tuesday than at any time in her eight years there.

“It’s been unreal,” Enda said Wednesday morning. “It’s because everybody’s in a panic.”

The store still had all three grades of gas, but the storage tanks were at less than half the usual level, and the owner said if they ran out, it could take several days to get a refill, Enda said.

The flow of gas to Kentucky wasn’t directly affected by the cyberattack shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline that serves the East Coast, but worries over the potential for dry pumps did hit the state directly.

State Transportation Secretary Jim Gray declared a state of emergency Wednesday aimed at speeding up the delivery of tanker loads of gas to distributors and stores.

The order waived limits on how many hours tanker drivers can stay behind the wheel and said they don’t have to stop at weigh stations.

AAA Blue Grass had gotten reports that stations in the southern part of the state were running out of fuel, as well as stations in the Northern Kentucky area, said spokeswoman Lori Weaver Hawkins.

Tennessee was directly affected by the pipeline problem, so there was some thought that the shortages along the border with Tennessee were caused by people coming north to Kentucky to find gas, Hawkins said.

But Hawkins said much of the reason for short supplies in Kentucky was people filling their tanks and containers out of concern about not being able to get gas.

“We’re making our own problem, basically,” she said.

The bare shelves that people remember from the early days of the novel coronavirus pandemic play into that concern, Hawkins said.

That’s understandable, but AAA advised against panic buying that soaks up the available gas. That could create more demand than stores in smaller towns anticipated, running them short of gas.

“I just wish people would quit panicking or we’re gonna have another toilet paper situation on our hands,” said Enda, recalling the shortage of a crucial item early in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Colonial has said the pipeline should be back to near-normal operation later this week.

“This is a short-term blip,” Hawkins said. “This isn’t some big nationwide gas shortage.”

There was a very real local shortage, however, at Cruise Mart, a convenience store north of Somerset in Science Hill, where the tanks ran dry Tuesday evening.

“It was crazy here for two days” as people filled up, said Teresa Stevens, the manager.

Stevens said it wasn’t clear when the supplier would be able to get a tanker of gas to the store. She just knew it wouldn’t be on Wednesday.

“It’s really aggravating,” Stevens said.

Darrell Smith, owner of Payless Gas, a Shell station in Monticello, said he understood from customers that a station in neighboring Clinton County ran out of gas Monday, sending people scrambling for other sources.

“That triggered a panic-buying mode,” Smith said.

Smith said cars lined up at his station and others in town, draining supplies. He was out of gas by 6 p.m. Monday.

His supplier brought him some gas on Tuesday, though less than he requested. The station ran out of gas again on Tuesday and was out until 2 p.m. Wednesday when he got half a load of gas.

Allen Elliott, who was delivering a tanker load of gas to a Speedway store in Somerset on Wednesday that he had picked up in Lexington, said the gas supply in Lexington hadn’t been disrupted.

However, he had to wait three hours to fill his tanker, instead of the usual 30 minutes, because truckers had come from the Knoxville area to fill their tankers.

The supply picture was mixed around the state late Tuesday and Wednesday, with some stores out of gas or running short, some out of 87- and 89-octane gas but still selling 93, and some having little trouble with supply.

Lynda Lambert, spokesperson for AAA East Central in Louisville, said there was no widespread lack of gas in Kentucky, but that some stores could run short depending on where they get supplies and how long the disruption lasts.

“It’s very spotty,” she said of the shortages.

One distributor who supplies stores in Kentucky reported Wednesday that he couldn’t get gas from his usual source in Tennessee, Lambert said.

Double Kwik, a convenience-store chain with dozens of locations in Eastern Kentucky, said on Tuesday afternoon that it had a sufficient supply of gas and access to sources other than those served by the Colonial Pipeline.

“If we as a community continue to fuel as normal and don’t over-purchase, we will get through this together,” the company said.

But a couple of hours later, Double Kwik announced it would limit customers to $30 worth of gas “due to increased volume sales.”

Marathon stations in Pike County also posted notices Wednesday limiting customers to $30 worth of gas.

There were open pumps at many stations along U.S. 23 in Pike County, but there were cones or trashcans in front of the pumps, and bags over the nozzles, at the Food City Gas ‘N Go in Pikeville.

A sign said the store was limiting gas purchases because of the Colonial Pipeline attack, but the pumps were actually closed.

“It’ll all calm down in a day or two, hopefully,” Stevens said.