Local shoppers clear store shelves amid coronavirus fears
EL CENTRO — “No hay nada, oh my lord,” a shopper said as she passed by the empty shelves of the toilet paper aisle on Thursday afternoon at Smart & Final Extra.
By 2:30 p.m., no toilet paper was left in stock on the shelves — only paper hand towels.
In front of the empty toilet paper shelves was the store’s section of hand soap, on which only a few bottles remained.
The worldwide panic of stocking up on supplies in reaction to novel coronavirus has struck the Imperial Valley, as evident by the empty shelves that could be found in many local retail stores.
Holtville resident Mary Meza Acosta and her husband shopped around some stores here Thursday looking for bottled water, to no avail.
The couple wasn’t looking to stock up on their supply of water, however. Acosta explained they needed a certain type of water to use for her husband’s breathing machine he uses at nighttime.
“He needs it very badly,” Acosta said of her husband. “And he’s very mad that they don’t have it.”
After stopping by Walmart, Cardenas and a few other stores, Acosta told her husband to stop at a certain store she only goes to when she needs to “buy something special”.
“I told him, ‘ Stop at Vons. Maybe not many Mexican people are going there, so let’s go,’” Acosta told her husband.
Sure enough, the Holtville resident walked out of Vons with two gallon water jugs of the brand she was searching for, as well as a package of hand napkins.
“I use napkins all the time, but they don’t have them in any place,” she said. “This is the only place that I found them at.”
While there were indeed napkins in stock at Smart & Final on Thursday afternoon, El Centro resident Betty J. Tucker stopped by the store to get some oil for some crackers she’d be making.
Stocking up on water or soap, or even believing in the hype of COVID-19, wasn’t something Tucker was going to do.
“I think everybody is overreacting and panicking,” she said. “And why?”
The El Centro native explained that this isn’t the first time the country, or even the world, has lived through a crisis.
“Is the government putting panic in us? Is the health department putting panic in us?” she said. “You should’ve been washing your hands. You should’ve been learning how to cough like this way before this happened.”
Tucker was surprised by all the public events that have been canceled — NBA games, Coachellafest, Stagecoach — due to the panic of the virus.
“You can shut it all down, but what are people going to do?” she said. “Unless you quarantine everybody to not come out of their houses, nothing is going to be done. They’ve had two months to develop something to fight all of this.”
Before stopping at Smart & Final, Tucker stopped by Costco in search of some oil.
“Right now at Costco, it’s chaos,” she said. “And the guy told me it was worse in the morning. But my theory is, a lot of people are buying this from Mexicali because they’re scared the border might close.”
A door greeter at Costco on Thursday afternoon told customers, “We’re out of water and toilet paper.”
This was evident to shoppers who passed by the completely empty shelves that once held toilet paper.
A section in the store that stocked Dial Complete antibacterial foaming hand soap was completely bought out.
Costco manager Manuel Estrella explained that the store had been sold out of water and toilet paper for a few hours already.
He noticed that, on Thursday afternoon, there were about three times as many customers in the store compared to Wednesday.
“We’re restocking as fast as we can, but it’s a production thing,” Estrella said. “It’s not a Costco thing. It’s all around. It’s not us only that don’t have it; it’s everybody.”
As carts filled with 24- packs of bottled waters could be seen being pushed through the store, El Centro resident Rosa Hernandez-Zavala stood out a bit with her rather empty cart.
In it, she had only two boxes of diapers, which she planned to purchase as a gift.
Looking around at the commotion, Hernandez- Zavala said she was surprised about how shoppers were behaving Thursday.
“There’s no water back there,” she said while inside the store. “There’s no baby wipes, no toilet paper, there’s no towel paper. Like, people are really freaking out.”
Hernandez-Zavala knows a bit about how to handle, and plan for, stressful situations. She retired last year after serving for 18 years as the county’s Emergency Medical Services deputy coordinator.
“For years, we’ve been telling people, ‘ You need to be prepared, you need to be prepared at least for two weeks in case of an emergency,’” she said.
The retired deputy coordinator felt that the empty shelves around local stores on Thursday served as an eye- opener for Valley residents to stay prepared.
“My family members are always prepared,” she said. “They’ve known to be prepared. But I am telling them to wash their hands more regularly. And if you see a person that is constantly coughing, just kind of stay away from that, and to avoid large gatherings. If there’s no need for you to go there, just avoid it. It’s just to prevent any exposure.”
Hernandez-Zavala will be gifting the diapers to an Imperial County firefighter on Saturday. The firefighter had been struggling to start a family with his wife, although was finally able to do so.
“They’re having baby twins, so I’m taking him two boxes of diapers,” Hernandez-Zavala said.