Food, Supplies Flying Off Store Shelves

It took only a short drive through Gloucester Township mid-afternoon Friday to realize that this was not your typical summer Friday, that something was happening or about to happen.

High-volume traffic was the norm on many roadways throughout the township as early as 1 p.m. It was the same whether you were on Blackwood Clementon Road, Chews Landing Road or Little Gloucester Road.

By 2:30, 3 p.m., it looked like rush hour—in a major city.

The unusually heavy mid-afternoon traffic was the first indicator this Friday was no normal summer Friday.

The absolute proof that something was amiss came with a trip to the supermarket. Any one of them, for sure.

That's where talk of Hurricane Irene was unavoidable (and to a journalist this was very refreshing because it meant people are watching the news, reading their newspapers and news websites, or listening to news radio).

GT Patch decided to try out the ShopRite on Chews Landing Road, in the township's Laurel Springs section.

The store actually did a nice job preparing for the apparently imminent major storm—a 5 p.m. Friday forecast indicated Irene would hit New Jersey's southern tip around 2 a.m. Sunday as a Category 1 hurricane.

There was plenty of milk and water remaining on the ShopRite shelves at around 3:30 p.m. Friday, though the bread aisle left much to be desired by that point.

Terri Gibbons, of Blackwood, was wary of the crowd inside the store a she surveyed the jam-packed parking lot.

"It's not looking good," she said. "It looks like a snowstorm (rush on the supermarket)."

Gibbons was one of the few people GT Patch interviewed who believes Irene will deliver what the meteorologists are predicting.

"I think it's going to be pretty big, yeah," she said.

Glenn Mercer, of Laurel Springs, shrugged off the storm.

"I think it's overblown," he said.

Yet he was there shopping along with those who were preparing for Irene?

"I'm getting cold stuff," he said, nodding his head toward his shopping cart, "so I can't be too worried."

Katie Suloff, of Blackwood, was at the supermarket for no other reason than to prepare for Irene. She was loading up on water and duct tape, which some safety experts recommend using on windows to make them more secure.

"I think it's going to be bad, but not as bad as they're saying," Suloff said.

The Zallie's chain of ShopRite supermarkets will be closing doors at 6 p.m. Saturday and not re-opening until 10 a.m. Monday, heeding the state of emergency declaration of Gov. Chris Christie.

Camden County Office of Emergency Management issued a statement Friday evening asking residents to stay at home during the hurricane, unless evacuations are ordered at some point.

"The best thing for residents to do prior to the storm is to gather enough food and supplies to ride out the storm in their own homes,” said Freeholder Rod Greco, a Gloucester Township resident and the freeholder board's liaison to the county Department of Public Safety.