With the images of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation fresh in the minds of Hawaii residents and four storms lurking to the east of the islands, people have been stocking up on essentials.
Forecasters have been keeping close watch on hurricanes and storms inching closer to the state. The storms have many people in Hawaii on edge. Many people have been flooding Costco and Sam’s Club.
At Sam’s Club Sunday, shoppers scrambled to scoop up whatever they could to put together a hurricane survival kit.
“I got toilet paper. I got tuna. I got a lot of Spam. I got ham and turkey packaged,” shopper Terrance Booth said. “You never know when you’re going to need it. Plus, there’s a hurricane coming. So that’s basically why.”
“We have our members preparing for the hurricane. They’re buying all of our consumables, water, canned goods, paper towels, everything that they think they’ll be needing, utilities and things of that nature,” Sam’s Club Merchant Manager Kepa Heller said.
The store sold out of bottled water Sunday morning. An empty space remained where hundreds of bottles of water are usually stocked.
Managers expect to replenish shelves by the middle of the week. They said the store has seen about 1,000 more customers a day than usual during the weekend. The Sam’s Club on Keeamoku Avenue ran out of D batteries by Sunday.
“It started on Friday. On Thursday, it started trickling down. Friday and yesterday we were hit pretty hard,” Heller said.
Shoppers said whatever the weather brings, it is better to be safe than sorry.
