Came face to face with empty shelves-unnerving

[packman]

Went to my local Publix and saw the results of panic buying. I expected there to be empty shelves of toilet paper (and there was) but didn't expect to see the meat cooler empty. All beef, chicken, pork, etc. gone. And the shelf of the dry goods like pasta , beans, rice were empty. Empty shelves on the canned veggies, except for a few exotic types. No bleach, no dry wipes and even the soda isles had empty spaces. No soap products, no napkins, bread shelves at the bakery empty. Egg department dry as a bone, even the cartons of egg whites gone.

Scary stuff -

[wcmagumba]

1. Where are you located?nt

[packman]

3. Panhandle, Florida - about 20 miles east of Pensacola

[dewsgirl]

8. I'm in Fort Walton., yes emptier than pre hurricane times.

[bottomofthehill]

4. I don't know where the poster is but....

That is the way my grocery store looked in northern virginia

[demtenjeep]

2. Yes. Saturday was like that for me. Quite a jolt. We needed regular things as we shop on Saturday

had to buy 1 HUGE familly pack of burger.

The only carton of eggs left had a broken one-we bought it anyway


I need alcohol wipes for my finger sticks-none

We always keep a small bottle of rubbing alcohol and peroxide-NONE


lysol wipes-gone

soap of any kind-gone


Our weekly grocery list got about 1/2 filled

[SoCalNative]

5. I had the same experience in L.A.

on Saturday morning. Haven't bothered to venture out again to see if it's gotten any better, but I doubt it.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. People are, at heart, assholes. Around here, we have plenty of alternative...

shops, like dollar stores, for a lot of this stuff. Just picked up a thousand napkins for five bucks.

My problem is getting distilled water for the cpap machine. Why anyone needs gallons of distilled water I I do not understand unless maybe they're just grabbing random water jugs off the shelf.

[underpants]

7. My wife aphad the same experience at Kroger and Aldis

I had to run to Publix and it was spilling over with produce. No TP though.

[NRaleighLiberal]

9. me too. Trader Joe in Asheville, Ingles in Hendersonville

eerie. so weird.

[MoonchildCA]

13. Do you live there?

My daughter is in Asheville. My husband and I are considering retiring in Hendersonville--about 8 years from now.

[NRaleighLiberal]

15. yes, just moved to Hendersonville after 28 yrs in Raleigh.

We absolutely love it!

[MoonchildCA]

17. I have a sister and brother-in-law in Carrboro.

We were in Asheville a year ago. We really loved it there as well.

In California now, near Ojai. It's lovely here and the weather's great, but we can buy a house there for about half the price of our house here.

[EarthFirst]

10. It's been that way since Thursday here...

Took us a few days just to get our weekly list crossed off with minimal extras as they were simply unavailable.

We could pull it off if we needed to I suppose.

It’s surreal though; that’s for sure!

[Blueplanet]

11. Same here packman

Went to three stores looking for bread before I found some. Seeing all of the empty shelves was just plain eerie. I've never seen anything like it before. No chicken, except for a few organic roasters. Paper products were almost non-existent, except for some napkins.

[BigmanPigman]

12. I just went shopping for the first time since

last Tues and saw previews on the local news. Trader Joe's had only a certain number of customers allowed in the store at a time so I skipped it and went to Ralph's (Kroger) and I let out a loud HA! when I saw the empty shelves. No TP, napkins or paper towels. All cleaning stuff was gone as was all the pasta, fresh meat, chicken and fish, and oatmeal/hot cereal. The hours at both stores changed and are no longer open 24 hours but are closed at 8PM.

[customerserviceguy]

14. Saw a lot of that

earlier this afternoon at my Lowe's Foods market in town. Meat and milk are pretty much gone, and the produce department is almost stripped bare. No bread on that aisle, good thing I have yeast and flour and can bake my own if needed.

I didn't even bother looking at the paper products aisle.

[gibraltar72]

16. People are realizing this is a rolling thing

the uncertainty is what's driving this. The rules keep changing so people are preparing for the worst. It's like the stock market a no confidence vote.

[captain queeg]

18. Really took off today. A couple things were gone last week.

Today lots of empty shelves, lots of shoppers being very aggressive tearing up and down the aisles.

[BumRushDaShow]

19. I was out to mail some bills and stopped by my local supermarket earlier this afternoon

to see what was left and grab a few items... And the entire section of chicken was gone (not much different when I was there in the morning a couple days ago). There were some assorted packages of beef scattered here (no ground beef) as well as some pork. Of course the paper products shelves continued to be bare.

What was different was that this time the shelf with flour was bare. In addition, the whole refrigerated "breakfast" section - notably the frozen waffles - was empty. There was a significant drop in some of the produce although they still had a good amount left. There were some loaves of bread left too, as well as bagels/English muffins, etc.

In any case, the store was semi-crowded but not overly so. I expect later tonight it will really pack up.

[roamer65]

20. I had one woman tell me today in line at my bank she had TP for the right price.

Told her if you are home a shower and a washcloth can do the same job. Just bleach the cloth after...duh.

She shut the fuck up.

[shanti]

21. I don't understand the egg sell out

there are PLENTY of chickens, don't they lay eggs daily? Maybe it's time to raise my own backyard chickens.

[Windy City Charlie]

22. Ironically....

What's happening with the store shelves is exactly why the need to flatten the curve with social-distancing. Look at all the items on the store shelves that are now gone. There's a whole lot less supply than that when it comes to the health care system. Furthermore, there's a whole lot more grocery stores than there are health care facilities.

Just imagine what's taking place at the stores now and transferring that to our health care system and what sort of problems we could be facing if the curve doesn't get flattened.

[drmeow]

23. Yeah, the empty meat and fish

counters were the most disconcerting for me.

Also - the vegetables! They don't keep. Of course, in that case the other grocery store a few miles down the road had plenty.

[MLAA]

24. I went to Natural Grocers yesterday

Paper goods all out. But the rest of the shelves about 60 to 70 percent still stocked. Plenty of fresh veggies.