We usually do our shopping around 6 at night, but last night we decided to go around 7:30 to avoid the crowds. No way! The parking lot was full and the lines were extremely long, so we waited until today. The store was still crowded, but the lines were a lot better.
Not surprisingly, they were out of a lot of things. Essentially no frozen vegetables, and here are pictures of the toilet paper shelves:
And they’ve been out of gallon containers of drinking water for a week or so now:
Other shelves were depleted too, especially pasta, canned vegetables, other food that can be stocked for a while.
How are your stores doing?
March 13, 2020
from what I’ve heard about the same as yours.
one lady had driven all over town just looking for toilet paper!
I eat very simply. I have plenty of cereal. and I could eat it dry if I had to.
I use almond milk. and I had restocked on vitamins and other supplements I take a few weeks ago … so I feel okay there. I also have quite a few frozen dinners that are standard for me to keep anyway.
people are panicking here.
everything is closed for the next few weeks. big events of every kind from sports (especially sports. the visiting pro NBA team had two players who were confirmed with it.) and the university and all schools are closed of course.
one wonders how long it will go on… as the weather gets warmer.
We should be in fairly good shape too. Maybe not the most tasty stuff in the world, but edible.
We were to our store today…all TP was gone…and my cashier said she had doctors come through and say they didn’t know why people were so concerned with it as this virus was nothing to do with stomach.
I always like to have a good supply of TP and paper towels on hand, and I do have now.
That’s the same with us about towels and TP. We always buy them in bulk because it’s simpler.
I noted a few empty shelves, but nothing drastic as I see in photos (elsewhere) – this a rather small suburban supermarket (one of the big chains) that I often frequent as it’s on my way home from various places.
We manufacture a lot of products here, but I did here that some ingredients from overseas may cause food products in the main to suffer…hot x-buns are in stock 🙂 but maybe next year, lack of raisins!
I checked my t/paper supply – I had thought I had only 2 left but wasn’t looking in my storage bag properly…I’ve plenty of soap. I don’t use bottled water, happy with piped supply. I think I will cope…
What is amazing is this connection – we learn to much (of course, some of it conflicting) – fast…
Here they always tell us to have a three-day supply of food and water in case of emergencies like wildfire, etc. I think they expect our water and electricity to still be here during this disruption.
I was following the community message board today and people were posting about which stores have run out of what. Toilet people shortages and hand sanitizer seemed to be the worse with many stores out of them. I just don’t get the TP. People were buying up soup and water. I don’t get buying water either but then I drink tap water and it tastes great. I have plenty of food on hand but I really need to make a trip to find dog treats. The idea living with my dog without them is not something I could endure without it killing one or the other of us. I’m taking a chance of waiting until Tuesday to shop, hoping the hoarders and crazy people will be gone by then.
Yes, don’t forget the pup! 😀
Not much panic buying here in Belfast at the moment. The shelves have been stripped of some items like pasta, soya milk and tinned tomatoes but most other things are available. I’ve asked several people why toilet paper is being raided in such huge quantities but nobody can explain. It’s one of those copycat things where one person buys 100 toilet rolls and everyone else thinks maybe they need 100 toilet rolls too. Completely mindless.
I hope we don’t need that much toilet paper! Stores here are starting to put limits on how much people can buy of certain items.
the same as yours, I am going to WM in about 15 minutes, my regular shopping, but last week it was empty. I did not make a meal plan because I don’t know what is there, even the meat is gone..my cousins posted photos on FB yesterday of the WM meat gone… the thing is most of us do not have freezers to stock things in. we only buy what we eat, we keep 2 weeks in the house at all times. now what we eat we can’t replace because it is sitting in freezers all over town. hoarding at its ugliest. some stores are limiting but that does no good, they just go with 3 members of the family and all check out separately.
That’s too bad, but here it looks like things are starting to get back to normal — freezers can only hold so much. We don’t have one either, so a few weeks ago when we first heard we need to prepare, we bought a number of cans of vegetables and fish over various trips to the store. Hopefully we have bought enough, but I also have some other things that would do in a pinch. Fingers crossed. It’s hard to prepare when you don’t know what will happen.
I went to Walmart after work yesterday and it was busier than usual for that time of day. Shelves were very low in a lot of spots. No toilet paper which is the norm everywhere now.
Even Amazon is out of toilet paper, but we’re hoping the rest of the stuff will soon be back to normal.
Trump says ignore the previous advice to have enough to last a month of hunkering down. Buy only enough to for the week ahead because the situation was in good hands, the administration had “tremendous control” over the spread of the disease. It would be nice if he were right and the health officials were wrong. I wouldn’t bet the rent on it.
Mom always has a decent supply of nonperishables, but it is the fresh meat, fruit, veggies, and dairy that is a problem. Yesterday two of our local supermarkets were totally out of milk, cream, eggs, yogurt, and blueberries. She is pretty much done with big shopping for now and will rely on our human sisters to help keep them supplied with what they need. Hope you have all you need and stay healthy.
Woos, Lightning and Timber
Our store was out of eggs and meat, and almost out of milk, but we have plenty of nonperishables and wouldn’t starve if we had to rely on them for a while. It wouldn’t be as nice as fresh food, of course.
Dave had to visit three stores to buy toilet paper. He only bought one 6-pack so others could have a chance to buy some, too. Maybe the fear has to do with confinement without supplies? We usually shop twice a week but have enough food for at least a week so feel no need to stockpile anything. No one official expects our municipal water supply to be affected. We do have a few small bottles of water in the fridge but they are always there in case we have company that prefers them. (Our daughter doesn’t like the taste of our tap water.)
I’m not worried about water, except for having the usual recommendation here to have a three-day supply for ordinary emergencies.