…but it can
In January of 2007, a severe ice storm struck a wide swath of North America, from the Rio Grande Valley all the way up into southeastern Canada. Anita Evangelista wrote in Backwoods Home magazine about her experiences at a Wal-Mart in Springfield, Missouri:
The lights flicker ominously. I spend some time looking at shopping carts—one woman has four gallons of drinking water, that’s all, but she’s very happy—she got the last jugs of water in the store. Another had three loaves of white bread, a box of hot fried chicken, a bucket of potato salad, three large bags of chips, a small bag of tangerines, a liter of sugar-free lemonade, and a box of donuts—she looked worried, uncertain what to do next. Her husband is pale and wide-eyed. I watch a man stride confidently up to the candles rack, and stare, open-mouthed, at the utterly empty shelves. A tired looking woman picks up and turns over a package of luncheon meat, then puts it back in the case—it had been opened. The rest of the bologna, lunch meats, and cheeses are gone.
By this point we were about 48 hours into the ice, and the only operating Wal-Mart in a town of 200,000 was completely out of candles, bottled water, toilet paper, bread, soup, luncheon meats, C- and D-cell batteries, dry ice, bagged ice, flashlights, ice melter, cat sand (which is often used along with ice melter for traction on ice), woolen socks, camp lights, camp stoves, Coleman fuel, and propane jugs, and didn’t expect any deliveries. Even the chips, beer, and ammunition aisles were sparse.
In October of 2012, Hurricane Sandy rained destruction on some of the wealthiest, most developed, and most populous communities in North America.
James Molinaro, President of Staten Island Borough, said:
“[P]eople are buried in their own homes, have nothing to eat and nothing to drink. The neighbors down there that didn’t have electricity managed to put together pots of soup and they were distributed to the people down there whose homes were just destroyed — and the American Red Cross was nowhere to be found. This is America. This is not a Third World nation. We need food. We need clothing. We need everything you can possibly think of.”
And another report by NBC News:
“Hundreds of thousands of people in New York City, Long Island and New Jersey may not have power restored for up to 10 more days, officials warned Thursday. Meanwhile, weather forecasters said a winter storm could hit the Northeast next week.
Meanwhile, FEMA and the National Guard dropped off diapers and water in the Bronx, where there has been no running water or electricity… Residents there said that people had broken into a supermarket to steal water and that the streets had grown dangerous. Without electricity, there’s no light, and without cell service, there’s no way to call for help…
Farther north in Hoboken, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, nearly 20,000 residents remained stranded in their homes, amid accusations that officials have been slow to deliver food and water.
One man blew up an air mattress and floated to City Hall, demanding to know why supplies hadn’t gotten out…”
“Supermarkets with their own generators managed to stay open and offer even perishable items. But other grocery stores went dark, or offered their customers an even more frustrating proposition: For instance, at the ShopRite supermarket in Neptune, N.J., food and supplies could be had – but customers were required to provide exact change.”
How about three Big Ones in a row? On January 28, 2014, a winter storm system bore down on the Southeast, causing complete gridlock on the roads in and around Atlanta, Georgia. Students were stuck on school buses for hours, and some had to spend the night in schools. So many cars were abandoned on the streets and freeways that the few available snowplows could not get anywhere.
Two weeks later, the people of the Atlanta metro area braced themselves for another storm, dubbed Winter Storm Pax. Weather forecasters predicted a “crippling event.” On February 11, CNN reported,
If you’re an Atlantan making a last-minute grocery run, here’s hoping you love corn and asparagus. Because that’s all that may be left on most shelves as residents stock up and hunker down for the ice storm.
Gone are the loaves of bread. The gallons of milk. The cans of beans and beer.
Social media was littered with photos of empty store shelves. Captions read:
Yikes!!! 7:15pm in #atlantasnow and Publix is out of bread… OMG – that equals a lot of sandwiches..
empty bread shelf…people were fighting. Yes fighting.
Another winter storm coming to Atlanta, grocery store out of bread
Everybody’s Freakin’ in Atlanta again about some snow. Some lady shoved me (While I was buying cigs; Watch IT bread-buying-Freak!!!)
The bread aisle is completely wiped out at Publix. Atlanta claims it’s ready for Snowpocalypse Pt. 2…fingers crossed!
This Atlanta “storm” is about to be so bad, & the panic is so bad that there is no more bread at @target.
Empty shelves… a sign of the times #snowpocalypse
Fox Carolina News tweeted,
Check out our empty shelves slideshow.
http://www.foxcarolina.com/slideshow?widgetid=1040...
Over 80% of the city of Augusta lost power during this storm. In the aftermath, two days later, residents were unnerved when a magnitude 4.1 earthquake struck, followed two days later by a 3.2 aftershock.