Ethan Hein, a 44-year-old music teacher at NYU, has been a member of the Park Slope Food Coop for roughly 10 years. The father of two has seen it all, witnessing food runs from snowstorms, hurricanes and the swine flu epidemic of 2009.
But during his regular shopping excursion last Sunday afternoon, he noticed something he had never seen before: bare shelves and bins of normally well-stocked items.
"It wasn’t that there were more people," he said. "It’s always a zoo but they are usually not completely out of half the things in the store."
Nonperishables, in particular, took a hit. The dried bean and rice aisle had been nearly wiped out. Hein typically buys three cups of dried lentils, but on that day, the bins were nearly empty. "It's like people came and had hauled out hefty bags of lentils," he said.
Jason Covert, 45, a visual artist who who was working a shift this weekend, said, "It was madness. There were twice as many people as you would usually expect. Tensions were high. People were wearing masks."
He added: "There was a guy who had a mask on but his baby was facing out. So I was like, well, okay, I guess you got to take care of yourself first to take care of the baby."
Martha Hoffman, a receiving coordinator, told Gothamist that over the weekend they sold more than Christmas or Thanksgiving and that staffers have been moving inventory up from the basement at a record clip. "People are coming in and buying cases of things," she said. She cited cases of unsweetened soy milk, Annie's canned soups, and bulk items like quinoa, rice and beans as being completely sold out this past weekend. "I've never seen it like that."
Sign at the Park Slope Coop.
As the city braces for what many say will be an inevitable viral epidemic, some residents have begun taking a no-chances approach by stocking up on cleaning products, medicine, gallons of water, and their favorite non-perishable foods—from canned soups to dried beans to Trader Joe's frozen dinners—in the event an outbreak turns the city into the unfathomable: a ghost town of shut-ins.
Supermarkets across the city have been experiencing empty or near-empty shelves of products related to the outbreak. Since January, during the early onset of the outbreak in China, face masks have been nearly impossible to find in pharmacies. Now, similar to the rest of the country, hand sanitizer has also become increasingly difficult to find in stores. Health experts have said that absent hand-washing, people should rub their hands with hand sanitizers that contain at least 60 percent alcohol.
At Hudson Square Pharmacy in downtown Manhattan, sales of small portable-sized hand sanitzers were limited to two per customer at $1.99 each. A saleswoman said they were "going fast."
Nicole Messina, 27, who lives in Murray Hill, said the Fairway and Trader Joe’s in her neighborhood were both low on hand sanitizer, toilet paper, canned soup and pasta.
"Anything that was shelf-stable was pretty much going," she said.
For her and others, figuring how the volume of food and supplies one needs to survive during a possible pandemic has been confusing. "People say to plan for a month but it's really hard to calculate how much to buy," she said.
Messina, a literary assistant, said she was not too worried yet but she has started avoiding the subway. She can walk to work since her office is within a mile of her apartment.
"I don’t think we are going to be hit that badly probably but there’s still a risk because there are so many people," she said.
On Monday night, the Whole Foods in the Bowery, the largest supermarket in Manhattan, had a shortage of both canned and dried beans, rice and grains as well as frozen foods.
Dried bean aisle at Whole Foods in the Bowery.
Frozen food section at Whole Foods.
At Wegman's, the popular supermarket chain which opened at the Brooklyn Navy Yard last October to great fanfare, the aisles for dried foods and canned good were packed on Sunday. Some soap and pain relievers were sold out.
On the Fresh Direct website, nonperishables like soup, rice, beans were also out of stock. "I’ve never seen so many items on Fresh direct out of stock in my 10 years of shopping with them," wrote Amy Duke-Benfield, who lives in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood. "It is stunning."
There were also reports of lengthy delays on Sunday and Monday with Amazon's same-day grocery delivery service due to demand. On Tuesday, the site had a notice that read, "Please note that at this time delivery availability may be limited."
Shopping aisles at Wegman's on Sunday following news of the first coronavirus death in U.S.
Medicine was low in stock at Wegman's.
Health officials have attempted to walk a line between advising people to take precautions and triggering anxiety and panic shopping, especially as the caseload in the city increases, which Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio has said is bound to happen.
"We should start by saying that people should disrupt their normal lives as little as possible," said Dr. Irwin Redlener, the director of Columbia University's National Center for Disaster Preparedness.
He said buying hand sanitizer was a good idea as well as having a couple face masks on hand. But like other experts, he said that there was no reason for healthy people to stock up on face masks or wear them outside.
Along those lines, some New Yorkers have adopted a calmer approach. Michael Williams, a 50-year-old photo editor who lives in New Jersey, said he remembered listening to the news during the 2009 swine flu epidemic. A self-professed hypochondriac at the time, he was living in Park Slope and regularly commuted to work in Midtown. "I remember starting to feel nervous about it and listening to people coughing on the subway on F train was driving me nuts."
He said he purchased specially designed face masks advertised as protecting against swine flu and began wearing them on the subway everyday. "I felt utterly ridiculous," he recalled. In the end, he exchanged the masks for a pair of headphones. "I just started listening to music and it did more for my sense of well being than the masks."
Sarah Peltz, a 41-year-old receptionist who lives in Bay Ridge, said she felt the 24-hour news cycle was contributing to hysteria. "I think we need to take a moment and process what is being said," she said, adding, "We are all kind of catastrophists at the moment."
The granddaughter of a retired nurse, she said she grew up hearing about good hygiene practices like how to wash your hands well. During the weekend, she went out and bought a thermometer and some cold medicine. "You have to think practically in situations like this otherwise you’ll just lose your friggin' mind," she said.
She is not that worried about running out of the bare essentials. Having survived low-paying jobs and layoffs during her 20s and 30s, she takes advantage of discounts to accumulate essentials. "When soap goes on sale I buy extra bars," she said. The same goes for toilet paper, toothpaste and canned soup.
"It’s bad to panic shop because you just buy everything and spend all this money," she said.
Gwynne Hogan, Jake Dobkin, Sydney Pereira, and Jen Carlson contributed reporting to this story.
