Anyone stockpiling food?

[barkley]

we've had the first u.s. death so we are officially under a state wide state of emergency. no real information disseminated as to what this means as yet.

 

[Colleen27]

I want to know the thought process behind stockpiling for a snowstorm. I've lived in Wisconsin, a state that gets a ton of snow, my whole life, and stockpiling food for a blizzard is entirely unnecessary. But tons of people do it. The grocery stores are crazy here the day before any type of snowfall.

Can someone explain the reason for this? Even in the worst blizzard, the roads are plowed in 1-2 days and grocery stores are open. I can't imagine a scenario where anyone is stuck in their house for multiple weeks because of snow.

I don't get that one either. I live in Michigan - snow is just a fact of life, and you'd think people would be used to it by now. Even after a major snowstorm, the main roads are cleared the next day and residential and back roads within a couple more. No real need to stockpile for that!

There are ways to get around the economic crash you've outlined (foreclosures, utility shut-offs, etc) but it requires the help and guidance of the government with a clear economic plan. I think public safety outweighs political cost ultimately. I don't think the entire nation lives paycheck to paycheck but am sure some do.

Yeah, but it isn't a plan that we have at the ready... and the last numbers I saw were pretty shocking on the number of people living paycheck-to-paycheck. It isn't everyone, but several studies have suggested it is a majority (like this one: https://www.marketwatch.com/press-r...mericans-live-paycheck-to-paycheck-2019-09-10). People who couldn't manage one paycheck being delayed are not likely to be able to rebound after several weeks without any earnings because of quarantine conditions.

 

[Colleen27]

So I went to the grocery today because I totally forgot it was Saturday, and some people are definitely stockpiling. They were out of corned beef hash, tuna, canned chicken noodle soup and a few other things that I tend to keep around the house that I've never had a hard time finding before in my life.

 

[SaintsManiac]

No doomsday prepping here. We sold Girl Scout cookies at Walmart this afternoon and all was normal. People in Louisiana can’t ever be bothered.

 

[Lehuaann]

At our Sam’s club, all hand sanitizers are gone; bleach and Lysol are limited to 5; and bottled water was very low (most likely gone by now). Someone was checking out with 3 flat carts of bottled water

 

[RedAngie]

No need to stockpile. I still have 98% of my Y2K stash of Spam and pork & beans.

 

[Brett Wyman]

All the stores here are low on toilet paper and paper towels??? Those are people's requirements to survive the apocalypse?

OTC area was ravaged as well.

 

[Ciao Mickey]

we've had the first u.s. death so we are officially under a state wide state of emergency. no real information disseminated as to what this means as yet.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/20...s-death-in-u-s-confirmed-in-washington-state/

 

[starry_solo]

All the stores here are low on toilet paper and paper towels??? Those are people requirements to survive the apocalypse?

OTC area was ravaged as well.

we need to clean our butts and hands? LOL

 

[Ciao Mickey]

My husband went to Costco yesterday morning and said that Chinese people were buying pallets of water. My son went to Costco yesterday afternoon and said that the bottled water was all gone.

I’m trying to figure out why they would be buying all the bottled water (New Year Celebration parties still going on or a water main break somewhere)?

Went to Shop Rite this afternoon and there was plenty of everything on the shelves including bottled water.

 

[DLgal]

Just got back from Target and Albertsons.

Here is what is GONE already (as in bare shelves, at both stores):

Rubbing alcohol
Acetaminophen
Ibuprofen
Aspirin
Cold medicines
Hand sanitizer
Wet Ones wipes

I was a bit surprised, not gonna lie.

 

[NYCgrrl]

Just got back from Target and Albertsons.

Here is what is GONE already (as in bare shelves, at both stores):

Rubbing alcohol
Acetaminophen
Ibuprofen
Aspirin
Cold medicines
Hand sanitizer
Wet Ones wipes

I was a bit surprised, not gonna lie.

Wonder what people will be doing with the rubbing alcohol?

 

[DLgal]

Wonder what people will be doing with the rubbing alcohol?

Well, in lieu of hand sanitizer, which is like 95% alcohol, you can just use rubbing alcohol, I guess? I mean, when someone in the house is sick, I use rubbing alcohol to clean the thermometer after every use, but we still use an oral thermometer.

Rubbing alcohol is on the list from the CDC of things you should have on hand.

 

[Momto2minniemice]

Nope, the flu is effecting more people than the new virus.

 

[DisneyOma]

A man in his 50's with underlying health conditions died of the virus - sounds just like the flu.

 

[Dole_whip_doll]

The Clorox wipes section in all our grocery stores was wiped out. I wanted some of the small “to go” packs for our trip next week. If you are looking for them, try Walgreens. They have their store brand (Nice!) and ingredients and what it protects from are same as Clorox.

 

[Colleen27]

A man in his 50's with underlying health conditions died of the virus - sounds just like the flu.

So far, there appear to be some interesting differences... I'm not sure if this has changed, because the reporting I read was a week or so ago, but the BBC was examining the profiles of the COVID19 fatalities and noted a virtually total lack of pediatric deaths. That's a big difference from the flu, which is deadly to both the very young and the very old. And it appears to be pretty gender-biased as well, with men more than twice as likely to die than women who are diagnosed with the disease, though I've heard that may be attributable to the gendered divide on smoking rates in China.

 

[DisLiss]

We buy water if we are in the path of a hurricane.

And we always keep a decent stash of water because we are on a well. With Hurricane Sandy the lack of power also cut off our well pump for 12 days. Luckily we had a pool outside to get water to flush the terlette.

This is exactly when we went out and stockpiled! When Sandy was coming not only did we go out to buy extra drinking water, plus food that did not require heating or cooling, but I also spent pretty much an entire day filling every conceivable container we owned to use for washing and flushing the toilet. (I also washed every dish and piece of dirty laundry to be sure we'd not be forced to have to wash anything right away, LOL!) Anyway, our power was out for a week, so I'm glad we did what we did in advance in that case.

And man did we appreciate electricity after that!

 

[DisLiss]

The Clorox wipes section in all our grocery stores was wiped out. I wanted some of the small “to go” packs for our trip next week.

I was at three different stores today, and I didn't notice anything that seemed to be out of stock or low stock at all. So apparently people in my area aren't going on Chlorox wipe runs. (And because we just got over the flu here, cleaning wipes were actually on my list, and I opted against getting them one place to try for a cheaper price the next place, so I definitely saw those particular shelves and options abounded for them. )

 

[wilbret]

Nope, but my father in law is retired military and goes overboard with everything, lol. He got the kids MREs for camping, and it’s several cases. That plus what we have would easily be several weeks of food.