Hitting the panic button: What you bought at the store
By Steve Herring
Published in News on January 30, 2014 1:46 PM
otted meat, pork and beans, tuna and Vienna sausage are among the top prizes, along with milk, eggs and bread, sought out by local shoppers.
"I am looking at (a potted meat) aisle now I could lie down in," said Perry Kornegay, an assistant manager at Carlie C's IGA. "The Little Debbie rack is pretty much empty.
"My cold luncheon meat counter is about empty. Crackers, chips were hit pretty hard, too. Vienna sausage, if the power goes out, they can pop the top and get crackers."
Bags of ice were hot sellers as well before the storm, Kornegay said.
"I am surprised people were buying (regular) groceries because if the power went out, I am not sure what they would do with them unless they set them outside," he said.
And nervous snow watchers did not wait until the last minute either, Kornegay added.
"I came to work Monday at 1 p.m. and it was already on. "I left at 10:30 p.m. and when I got back at 6:30 Tuesday morning, they were knocking on the door. I think people bought more on Monday trying to get ready for the storm."
The stores has deliveries on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, so the pre-storm shopping didn't wipe out supplies, Kornegay said.
"We are stocking today," he said.
The store did sell out of milk, but that is on a different delivery schedule, Kornegay said.
Stocking up on food wasn't the only thing people were interested in doing -- hardware stores were busy as well.
"We sold out of salt yesterday (Tuesday)," said Tony McLamb, an employee at Delmus Hardware. "We sold out of sleds, too. One of the big sellers has been shovels, kerosene heaters. Propane has been the biggest thing for the past three days, from 20 pounds on up to 100 pound (tanks).
"It has been slow today, but I don't know that there are that many businesses open. It has been steady all day."
One of the managers at Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse, David Torres, said it is his first winter in North Carolina so he was unsure how this week's sales compared to prior years.
However, he said he expected the items sold would be similar to what is sold in other areas when winter weather threatens.
"We sold out of shovels," he said. "We sold out of salt. There also was a huge demand for pipe insulation -- anything to protect pipes. Items to