The Sam’s Club in Myrtle Beach was full of shoppers in a panic Wednesday morning attempting to buy toilet paper, water and other dry goods. Few were successful.
By 10:30 a.m. the bulk grocery store at 1946 10th Ave. North had completely run out of water, toilet paper and paper towels, and other items were on their way out. Aisles sat bare with customers walking around with empty shopping carts.
A mixture of people buying supplies to send to areas decimated by Hurricane Helene and people panic buying staples after the start of a dock workers strike left the store much busier than normal, Sam’s Club employees said.
Dock workers from Maine to Texas began a strike Tuesday over wages and the use of automation, which shut down seaports from the work stoppage.
Judy Danford of Conway said she was buying supplies to send to North Carolina. She wanted to send toilet paper but by the time she got to the store, the stock was out.
“It looks like it did during COVID,” Danford said, referring to the shortage of paper products during the spring of 2020.
Trenace Patterson, of Myrtle Beach, was standing in an empty spot where toilet paper usually sat stacked high with only a box of paper towels in her cart. She came to the store to buy staple items because she’s worried the port strike will cause shortages.
“Do I want 30 rolls of paper towels? No, but I gotta buy it to have it,” Patterson said.
One employee said paper products and water ran out Tuesday morning by 9:30 a.m. People had bought palettes of toilet paper and other supplies, leaving sections of the store empty even after resupplies.
There are currently no restrictions on how many items people can buy. That decision is made by corporate leadership not individual stores, the employee said.
The items that stores are running out of are not what the United States will see a shortage in from the dock strike. The dock strike will likely cause bananas, alcohol, car parts, machinery and electronics to take longer to deliver, not the water and toilet paper people are buying, USA Today reported.
At Sam’s Club, there were plenty of bananas, beer and wine left Wednesday morning.
The Myrtle Beach Walmart located at 541 Seaboard St. was not as busy Wednesday as Sam’s Club, but people are buying toilet paper, water and paper towels.
Customers are grabbing packs of water as soon as it was stocked, and there were very few packages of toilet paper left. Several people were walking around with carts full of the now-scarce items.
Mohamed Abbas said he heard that toilet paper and water would be impacted by recent events and decided to buy supplies for him and his friends.
Jackie Smith came from Pawleys Island to do her normal shopping trip and was surprised to see Costco and Sam’s Club in “complete chaos.”
“If everyone bought one, we’d be fine,” she said, referring to packs of toilet paper.
