Just completed the evening's final recon of WinCo, a warehouse-style grocery chain, here in Chico, Northern Cal. A stocker told me he's "never seen anything like this". A double whammy of the Stirred Herd AND early food stamp distribution has done its job: most staples picked through and over, Ramen roamin' out the door by the case, $1.98/flat, milk mooooving fast, those BIG bags of chips also seemed very popular. The checkout gal said most registers had been staffed all day, and tomorrow is expected to be the same, or worse. In regards to the Three Day Storm, a goodly portion of the items I scanned in various carts were perishables, or semi-so(veggies, bananas)but one of the oddest sights were the quantities of frozen vegetables, ice cream, o.j., and so on. After leaving there, went by the neighborhood ARCO to top off: not busy, not slow. Quick chat with the attendant, came away with info that biz had been strong and steady all day. Will post again about noon, PST, if anyone cares to hear. Big Thanks to Kristi, you saved me earlier, and mucho hugs to everyone who got this forum back to it's postion as The Vanguard.

-- J. Henry (shotgun12@att.net), December 31, 1999

Answers

Went to Albertsons tonight (Boise). The shelves were looking pretty picked over. The toilet paper row was not quite bare (very thin pickings). There was lots of water though. The meat section was almost cleaned out. Bread was thinned down too. I talked to the cashier and he said that they had just passed their December sales goal by $20,000. He wasn't looking forward to tomorrow.

I filled up four 5 gallon gas cans yesterday and got some funny looks. One guy even walked over to tell me Y2k wasn't going to be that bad. I just laughed it off. My two 55 gallon drums are now full.

Good luck everyone.

-- anonymous (anonymous@anonymous.com), December 31, 1999.

I filled my tank yesterday. All 10 pumps had cars, usually just 2 0r 3. There was no fire wood outside the door. There's usually a pallet full. XMAS candy was 1/2 off. Will be good with rice and beans in February.

-- John Littmann (John.Littmann@MCQUAY.com), December 31, 1999.