Despite the threat of high winds and heavy rains from Hurricane Sandy, grocery stores, lumber yards, and hardware stores in the coastal areas of Lincoln County aren’t seeing big changes in purchases.
“Everybody thinks its going to be another one that misses us…a few hours of power outages and then we’ll be back up and running,” said Charles Koehling, who works for Louis Doe’s Home Center in Newcastle.
Batteries are the most common item that people are after, but flashlights and fuels such as lamp oil, propane and kerosene are also seeing increased sales.
Shelves are full of bread and coolers are still full of milk, at least partially due to stores having plenty of notice of the upcoming storm.
“We make sure we have what people need to survive,” said Dave Joy, Assistant Store Manager at the Hannaford Supermarket in Damariscotta. Most national companies are focusing on getting extra product to the New York and New Jersey area, Joy said.
Generators are selling in some places, but not others. Damariscotta Hardware had one left at around 3 p.m., and Ames True Value Hardware and Supply in Wiscasset has sold out. Louis Doe’s hasn’t sold a single one, said Koehling.
Having time to prepare helps both businesses and customers, according to Wayne Averill, co-owner of Ames Supply.
“Sometimes it just sneaks right up and everybody’s in a panic all in one day,” Averill said. People have been buying since last week and “the holdouts that were hoping [predictions] were going to be wrong are coming in today,” he said.
Averill said his store has a truck headed to the True Value warehouse in Manchester, NH to pick up more batteries for tomorrow.
Jeff Pierce, co-owner of Yellowfront Grocery in Damariscotta, said having four deliveries each week makes it easy to adjust orders for higher demand that often comes with storms. “We ordered up on the bread, the milk, and the water…next time we’ll order more batteries,” he said.
Lumber yards in Damariscotta and Waldoboro did not see much of an increase in business over the past few days, but are expecting to see more sales for repair work after Hurricane Sandy has moved through.
Customers “all come in talking about” Hurricane Sandy but “we’ll probably see [more business] after the storm,” said Connie Brockman, operations manager of N.C. Hunt Lumber in Damariscotta.