Panic buying...

Water and batteries.
I'm afraid that's not much of a list, but that's all that jumps out at me from my days in New Orleans/hurricane preparation (decades ago).

 

I'll add bread, peanut butter, fresh fruit and junk food. Canned soups and veggies may go quickly as well.

 

panic buying

Being from Ms, we were right in the midst of KATRINA and all of the confusion, destruction, terror, and finally the rebuilding of so much that was lost. If my memory serves me right, people were buying distilled water, batteries, canned soup, pb, bread and crackers. Lots of cookies and Lil Debbie cakes, too. Anything that needed refrigeration was of no use cuz most of us were with out electricty for weeks. That is when I first saw the need of prepping and being self-reliant.

 

everything probably has been covered already but it seems to me that toilet paper flies off the shelves pretty fast...

maybe canned fuel, socks, disposable flashlights, gallon ziploc bags, alcohol? :dunno:

trash bags & duct tape :nuts:

 

Here when an ice storm comes Rock Salt flys off the shelf.

 

This was actually during the early stages, not 'before' the event:

At the grocery: Batteries and flashlights, milk ('regular' and dry), water, beer, bread/buns/muffins, meat of all kinds, fruit, candy and energy bars, sanitary supplies, canned soups and open-and-eat foods. Milk products were gone almost immediately.

At the sporting goods store: Generators and inverters; Coleman fuel, lanterns, stoves and heaters; propane lanterns, heaters and fuel; sleeping bags, flashlights and batteries, tarps. Down the line a long way, shotguns and shells.

At the hardware store: Flashlights and batteries, oil lamps and oil, kerosene lamps and fuel, generators, inverters, propane, charcoal and barbeques.

What didn't go right away: Water filters, season-appropriate outdoor clothing, boots, tools, dried foods, bulk foods.

This seemed to illustrate that people were under the (mostly correct) impression that the event was a temporary thing.

The event in question was an ice storm, shut down power for more than a hundred thousand people, some tens of thousands for 10-14 days...some hundreds of people were without power for a month.

 

cereal goes pretty quick around here before/during early stages of a blizzard (not that they get too severe here IMO)

 

This past winter when we were hit with the big snow storms, the junk food aisle was bare. Soda, chips, snack cakes and bread, milk, toilet paper. The liquor stores were doing a brisk business too.

 

What floors me, is after the 'storm' has passed, and especially once the Hurricane Season ends, the folks who were so quick to do their last-moment stocking will then sell or give everything away - "Oh, we don't need that stuff anymore!"
Next season, they are at it again....... :scratch

On the other hand, you can get some killer deals on un-used generators and plywood after the 'season' ends.......

 

I love run on snow shovels around here. Where the hell did the old one go? Sure they can break, but my shovel is 10-15 years old.

 

Nobody mentioned COFFEE, how about life jackets, rubber raft, rain gear, goggles...

 

In the mid-Atlantic, it's "Bread -- Milk -- Toilet paper". It's one part truth, one part regional inside joke, one part cultural imperative. It was even the theme of a lottery scratch-off game, once. Around here it is considered a civic DUTY to go buy these things (and whatever other perishables float your boat) in the hours right before a storm.

 

paper plates, paper bowls, paper cups, plastic spoons and forks??
:scratch won't have water for luxury of washing dishes...
They're in my prepping supplies.:congrat:

 

After living through several hurricanes in Florida, we witnessed the run on the stores as the storm is approaching. Here goes: water, batteries, propane, milk, bread, cereal, canned meat, canned veggies, snacks, etc...

If you really want to get a good idea of what flys off the shelves first, go to any campground's camp store. Thos are the items we typical see flying off the shelf.

We did our energy blackout test on Tuesday and refined our list even further.

 

panic buying

One thing I forgot to mention that left the shelves in a hurry was BLEACH.

 

I'm sure every house has water stored...with pool shock (calcium hypochloride only) you'll never have to buy bleach again.

 

I watched a documentary on wal-mart and they said right before a hurricane hits all the stores in the region affected will have a run on pop tarts...take it for what it is......

 

I witnessed NUTTY panic buying here in 95 we had a small snow coming, it was unreal, I had stopped at a store to just pick up some ice cream (for a pregnant wife) of all things. The store was playing what had to be a tape of the local weatherman, snow and ice forecast. I saw two women fighting over the last loaf of bread, we in Southeast TN, it aint like it's gonna stay froze for a month, but they were hooking I mean swinging, hair pulling and other more personal areas.

I laughed, picked the bread up myself and took it with me, but I learned from it, be ahead of the hordes if TSHTF. My theory is if TSHTF, we will be getting things the unprepped haven't thought about yet, while they kill each other at stores for bread and milk, we can be at farm stores getting large bags of salt, wheat, corn, powdered calf milk, and fertilizer possibly for free if things are real whacked out.