Shoppers at the Brandon Costco found an unwelcome surprise at 6:20 p.m. Tuesday: the wholesale store was minutes away from running out of water.
The store announced as much with a makeshift sign, typed in all-caps along two pieces of printer paper: “Out of water. Delivery tomorrow.”
Customers muttered the sign’s words under their breath, grousing to spouses they had phoned in during their shopping spree.
“There’s a delivery of water tomorrow,” one woman sighed, propping her head on her hand.
Customers had one reprieve: 18-pack bottles of ionized alkaline water, running for $9.99 a pop. A 40-pack of Costco’s Kirkland Signature water usually costs $3.99.
“I guess that’s fine. Just take it,” another woman instructed a family member.
Stacks of the last-minute reserve, thrown on islands in the center of the beverage aisle, disappeared within 15 minutes.
Big-box stores across Tampa Bay have been swarmed by shoppers crossing off hurricane checklists — and some more apathetic residents who still stocked up Tuesday, before forecasted bands of wind and rain were expected to lash Tampa Bay starting late Wednesday.
Water and other bottled beverages were most visibly in short supply Tuesday. Grocery sections of wholesale stores like Costco and Walmart were packed with shopping carts. Home goods stores like Lowe’s appeared a bit calmer early that evening.
Earlier in the evening, bottled water was in short supply at a Publix and Walmart in Brandon, too. A few packs of more expensive brands like Fiji and BodyArmor were the only options left on the shelves at Walmart by 5:30 p.m. One customer, Heather Acevedo, settled for flavored water instead.
“I’m gonna try going somewhere else” for regular water, she said.
At Publix around 4:30 p.m., signs were posted limiting what customers could take. The scarce supply on the shelves was all that was left for the day.
PepsiCo sales representative Ashley Stover said she watched law enforcement officers confront two customers who had gotten into a physical altercation over bottled water at Walmart.
She heard the officers tell the customers they ditch the water and leave — or get arrested.
The customers put the water back.
While water was most lacking on grocery store shelves, Stover said customers were desperate for any bottled beverage.
“If it’s liquid, it’s gone,” she said.
Stover said she’s been dashing from store to store while bottled products disappear as soon as they hit the shelves. Her job won’t stop as the storm makes landfall Thursday.
Even products for which demand has long dwindled — like two-liter bottles of Dr. Pepper or Orange Crush soda — flew off the shelves, she said. It took five hours for a freshly-replenished shelf of Gatorade to run out at a local Winn-Dixie yesterday.
Here were some other supplies running out at Walmart Tuesday evening:
- Sealing products for doors and windows, like DynaFlex and Gorilla Glue
- Extreme weather repair tape
- Battery-powered fans
- Pool cleaning supplies, like leaf skimmers
- Flashlights
Other stores, like the Lowe’s home improvement store along Brandon’s Causeway Boulevard, looked less haphazard. Store clerks had set up a section at the front of the store with consumer must-haves: batteries, flashlights and back-up generators. The items had steadily sold throughout the day, but weren’t close to running out, a store clerk said around 5 p.m.
Amid the shortages, a saving grace — gas didn’t appear to be scarce Wednesday morning. Across Tampa Bay, no shortages were reported to GasBuddy, a supply tracking website. While gas lines snaked through the Brandon Costco parking lot Tuesday evening, prices hadn’t changed dramatically by Wednesday. A regular gallon cost $2.83 at Costco as of early Wednesday morning, according to GasBuddy.
On Wednesday afternoon, much of the scene at the Brandon Costco looked the same. A clamor of carts and shoppers bounded for the bottled water section at the back of the store. But this time, more than a dozen islands held packs of water five stacks high. Cheap water had returned — for now.
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