Shoppers hit stores to prepare for icy days
By Kirsten Ballard
Published in News on February 17, 2015 1:46 PM
The bread was gone.
The bacon was gone.
And the winter weather isn't over yet.
While school children were still snug in their bed, celebrating the snow day, the staff of Carlie C's showed up before 7 a.m. to ready the grocery store.
Many businesses did not open.
Josh Johnson of the meat department arrived early to restock the shelves.
In preparation for the storm, the staff filled up the meat aisle three times yesterday, and still this morning, certain products were missing again.
"People are going crazy over it (the storm)," he said. "It's Goldsboro."
Management at Carlie C's ordered extra food yesterday to prepare for the shopping frenzy.
"We knew how it would be," Johnson said, as he unloaded box after box of lunch meat.
Milk was stacked two gallons high. The beer aisle was conspicuously sparse. The bread aisle looked like a ghost town, with entire shelves bare.
While shoppers were few in number during the morning, the staff worked to restock the empty shelves and prepare for the second round of the storm, expecting more crowds if the roads are predicted to refreeze tonight.
A few shoppers came in and out, buying the essentials they forgot yesterday.
"Definitely people bought meat for the storm," Johnson said. "Especially the lunch meat. The bacon is blown out."
Howard Smith was not worried though.
This storm isn't his first rodeo.
The Virginia native went to Lowe's at 9 a.m. to get the bags of salt. It was the first place he tried. He plucked two bags of rock ice from Lowe's and dropped them in his cart. That is all he needs to clear his drive.
Lowe's was down to one pallet of salt, having been ravaged the day before.
"This storm is not bad," Smith laughed.