ATLANTA – Gasoline prices could be headed up at the start of the summer driving season following the shutdown of a major pipeline hit by a cyberattack.
Alpharetta-based Colonial Pipeline reported Friday it was the victim of an attack involving ransomware that forced one of the largest fuel transport systems in the nation to halt most of its operations. Colonial’s 5,500-mile pipeline system runs from Texas to New Jersey.
“Maintaining the operational security of our pipeline, in addition to safely bringing our systems back online, remain our highest priorities,” Colonial wrote in a news release Sunday.
Colonial has hired independent cybersecurity experts to determine the nature and scope of the ransomware attack and put an operations team to work developing a system restart plan. The goal is “substantially restoring operational service” by the end of this week, the company wrote in an update Monday.
While four main lines remain out of service, some smaller lines connecting terminals with delivery points are now operational.
The full system will not be restored until Colonial officials believe it is safe to do so and in full compliance with federal regulations, the company stated. The U.S. Department of Energy is leading the federal response.
Ransomware attacks have become a growing problem for both government and private sector computer systems. In ransomware attacks, hackers block access to an organization’s computers and threaten to keep them blocked and/or publish sensitive private information unless a ransom is paid.
In one example, a ransomware attack in 2018 affected nearly 3,800 city of Atlanta computers, forcing the city to shut down its court system and delay many other services.
The perpetrators demanded a ransom of $51,000 in Bitcoin to restore access to the computer systems they had encrypted, which the city refused to pay. A federal grand jury indicted two Iranian nationals in the attack later that year.
ATLANTA – Amazon will build a fulfillment center in Savannah that will create 1,000 full-time jobs, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Friday.
The 640,000-square-foot facility, expected to open next year, will use innovative robotics technology to pick, pack, and ship smaller customer orders, such as books, toys, and small household goods.
“I appreciate Amazon’s continued commitment to creating well-paying e-commerce jobs for hardworking Georgians and look forward to the positive impact it will bring to the coastal region,” Kemp said.
“Georgia’s connectivity, combined with smart planning and investment, has helped our state secure its spot as the No.-1 state for logistics and infrastructure and enhances our ability to attract major investments from world-renowned companies like Amazon.”
Amazon currently employs more than 21,000 workers in Georgia at operations across the state, including a robotics fulfillment center in Stone Mountain that opened last year. The company contributed $3.2 billion to the state’s economy from 2010 to 2019.
“Amazon has found an outstanding workforce, strong local support, and incredible customers in the state,” said Melissa Nick, vice president of customer fulfillment at Amazon. “We look forward to creating these new, full-time jobs starting at $15 an hour with benefits on day one.”
Individuals interested in career opportunities with Amazon are encouraged to visit www.Amazon.jobs for more information.
Chief Operating Officer Brittany Young represented the Georgia Department of Economic Development’s Global Commerce Division in landing the Amazon project, working in partnership with the state Department of Transportation, Savannah Economic Development Authority, Georgia Ports Authority and Georgia Power.
Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation Friday to limit how much local governments in Georgia can cut funding for police agencies.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Houston Gaines, R-Athens, forbids cities and counties from cutting the budgets of most police agencies in the state by more than 5% over a five-year period, except during times of financial trouble such as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Its passage largely along party lines in the General Assembly came as Republican lawmakers moved to block efforts to reduce police budgets in the wake of last summer’s nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice.
Democratic leaders slammed the measure as a power grab by the state over local governments, noting also that criminal-justice advocates have largely called for shifting some budget dollars from law enforcement to other areas like mental health and housing rather than outright gutting police agencies.
Kemp framed the bill as a show of support for Georgia police officers who he said “continue to sacrifice their lives for the sake of others” despite growing backlash from local leaders and communities over recent high-profile killings by police including the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last year.
“The defund-the-police movement seeks to vilify the men and women who leave their families every day and put their lives on the lines to protect all Georgians,” Kemp said at a bill-signing ceremony in Barrow County Friday where he was flanked by several officers.
Besides limits on budget reduction, the bill also allows state and local public-safety employees including police, correctional officers, firefighters and EMS operators to deduct pay from their salaries to secure legal representation if they are sued or prosecuted for their actions on the job.
On another criminal justice front, Democrats joined Republicans during the 2021 legislative session to pass legislation overhauling Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law following last year’s killing of Ahmaud Arbery near Brunswick. Kemp is expected to sign that measure next week.
Weekend visits to Savannah began picking up in June of last year.
ATLANTA – When the coronavirus pandemic struck Georgia in March of last year, no industry shut down harder or faster than hospitality.
The leisure and hospitality sector lost 223,000 jobs statewide between February and April 2020.
In Atlanta, hotel occupancy plummeted from 74% in February of last year to just 9% in April.
“We’re a convention city,” said William Pate, president and CEO of the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau. “All of a sudden, the conventions canceled.”
“We lost half of March, all of April and most of May,” added Joe Marinelli, president of Visit Savannah, that city’s tourism promotion agency. “Losing those months was hard on us.”
But as the second Memorial Day of the COVID-19 era approaches, and with it the start of the summer vacation season, the signs point to a tourism recovery.
“We’re picking back up,” said Mark Jaronski, the deputy commissioner at the Georgia Department of Economic Development in charge of the agency’s tourism division. “The vaccine rollout has had the most positive effect on our visitation.”
Even during its worst days, the pandemic didn’t damage Georgia’s tourism industry as much as it hurt other states.
Jaronski credited the comparatively soft impact to Gov. Brian Kemp’s decision not to completely shut down the Georgia’s economy when he issued a shelter in place order in April 2020.
“Because we remained open, we were able to do better than the national average and many states,” he said.
While conventions, concerts and sporting events were shut down, Georgians began venturing out to the North Georgia mountains and the state’s beaches within weeks of Kemp’s order.
“People wanted to stay away from crowds and large group gatherings,” Jaronski said. “They were told by health experts and opinion leaders to stay away from groups, but maybe it’s OK to go to the beaches or mountains.”
There have even been some success stories during the pandemic. As the isolation afforded by camping sent sales of recreational vehicles soaring, visitation to state parks went up.
During fiscal year 2020, which ran through the end of June of last year, visits to state parks grew to 11.8 million, an increase of 562,000 over the previous year. Camping occupancy improved from 13% to 46%.
“Last year was quite a busy year,” said Kim Hatcher, spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Parks, Recreation & Historic Sites Division. “Occupancy is definitely up, mostly for camping.”
With the continuing popularity of the beaches and mountains, the state’s leisure and hospitality industry had gained back 144,000 of the 223,000 jobs lost to the pandemic by March of this year, 65% of the total, according to the Georgia Department of Labor.
Even more convention-dependent cities have begun to bounce back from the pandemic.
Marinelli said weekend visits by leisure travelers began heading back up by mid-June of last year and are going strong heading into the summer.
“Leisure travel is a big winner right now,” he said. “With Savannah being a leisure destination, we’re fortunate.”
Pate said Atlanta is forecasting a similar increase in leisure travel this summer.
To help complete the recovery, the state has launched a new marketing campaign aimed at the pent-up demand for travel on the part of pandemic-weary Americans.
The campaign conjures up the image of a sprinter coiled at the starting line. Instead of “Ready. Set. Go,” the slogan is “Ready. Set. Georgia.”
Jaronski said the new campaign targets the growing number of Americans eager to travel longer distances than last year, either by driving or flying.
“Last year, we focused almost exclusively on in-state travelers,” he said. “Now, we’re expanding beyond Georgia to bordering states and places like New York, Chicago and Miami.”
Along with the yearly update of the Georgia travel guide, the state tourism division has at its disposal $1 million in grant funding earmarked in Kemp’s mid-year budget for tourism marketing.
Jaronski said half of that money will go to tourism promotion agencies across Georgia that depend on hotel-motel tax revenue, a source of funding severely depleted by the pandemic.
Pate said the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau’s revenue is down 65% this year.
“It’s had a significant impact on the revenues of CVBs across the state,” he said.
Jaronski said the other half of the state grant money will go to individual businesses in the hospitality industry that have been hurt by the pandemic, including hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions.
Tourism projections show Georgia’s convention business will be the last to recover.
Pate said Atlanta has a “very strong” convention calendar booked for the last half of this year.
Marinelli said many of the conventions originally slated for Savannah last year or early this year have been postponed until late this year or early in 2022.
“People have to start going back to their home offices before [businesses] start sending them out to travel,” Jaronski said.
Similarly, sporting events are backloaded into this year’s calendar, including two Chick-fil-A Kickoff games over the Labor Day weekend at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium to begin the college football season and the SEC Championship game in December.
Cobb County recently lost Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game due to be played in July at Truist Park as part of a protest over a controversial election overhaul Kemp signed in March. But Pate said no other scheduled events have threatened to pull out.
Pate expects the tourism recovery will build on itself. As more and more people get outside, it will restore confidence that traveling is safe again, he said.
“Now that vaccines are pretty much available, people are out and about,” he said. “They want a vacation. They didn’t get one last year.”
ATLANTA – Savannah State University Interim President Kimberly Ballard-Washington is about to take on the job on a permanent basis.
Ballard-Washington has been selected sole finalist for the post, system Chancellor Steve Wrigley and Sachin Shailendra, chairman of the Board of Regents, announced Thursday.
Ballard-Washington has served as the university’s interim president since former President Cheryl Dozier retired nearly two years ago. Before that, Ballard-Washington practiced law for 20 years, serving as an advisor to the state’s public colleges and universities.
“Savannah State’s 130-year history could not be better served than with a candidate of Ms. Ballard-Washington’s leadership and determination to honor its legacy while helping students successfully complete their degrees in the 21st century,” Wrigley said.
“Kimberly has invaluable experience gained from working at a number of public universities across the state and understands the important role Savannah State plays as the oldest public HBCU in Georgia. She truly and deeply cares for SSU, its students and its mission.”
Ballard-Washington’s past experience includes a stint as the university system’s associate vice chancellor for legal affairs. She also served in a similar capacity at the University of Georgia.
Her experience with Georgia’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities pre-dates coming to Savannah State. She served as interim president at Fort Valley State University before being tapped to lead Albany State University on an interim basis.
Ballard-Washington, a native of Montezuma, Ga., earned a bachelor’s degree from UGA. She earned a juris doctorate from Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law.
“I have long admired and now love Savannah State University,” she said. “For almost two years, I have had the privilege of leading one of the most historic and influential institutions in our state on a temporary basis. I am honored to now have the opportunity to continue to lead the University into the next phase of its future.”
The Board of Regents will take action on Ballard-Washington’s appointment as early as next week’s board meeting.
