Did I witness a normal day in Texas or a warning of panic without access to food?
I was at my local grocery store the other day to pick up a few things on my way home from work. It was about 3 p,m. and I was ready to checkout in the 10 items or less lane. As the cashier scanned my last item and I was ready to swipe my card the power went out. At first everyone in the store was fine and nobody panicked. About 10 seconds later some of the lights flickered on again from a backup generator. People went about their business continuing to shop except for those of us at the register since it was still down. I stood around with everyone else that was waiting to checkout for 5 minutes when someone from the store came over the intercom to let everyone know construction workers a block away had knocked out the power. Me and a few other customers joked around with the cashier about the weather and construction workers in general (I have no problem with them). 10 minutes into the power outage a few customers in a hurry with things to do abandoned their items and left the store. The small talk stopped for the next 5 minutes as everyone just stood around waiting for the registers to start working again. I noticed I only had $1 of cash in my pocket and some of the other customers looked at their cash. The most any of us (about 10 people waiting to checkout) had was $30 cash. But the cashier couldn’t take cash because the system was down. I thought to myself what if my credit/debit cards stopped working would I be prepared?
So then the next five minutes was when things got a little sticky. Customers started yelling about how they had no food and they needed milk or baby food, now. One lady said: “What will I do if I have nothing to eat?” The manager and cashiers tried to calm people down but more customers started shouting about not being able to provide for their families. I thought to myself: there is another store about five minutes down the road, what will people do when there really isn’t food available? Just when I thought a riot was going to ensue the power was restored and the checkout lines were open. All returned to normal and as I walked out the store, very thankful for my cash, silver and food stash at home. I saw many other unprepared people making their way into the store with no clue of what just went on inside.
What will happen when the stores are empty or when the power grids go down? – Zach in Texas