photo by Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph

Brookshire’s stores throughout East Texas started seeing more customers coming in on Sunday to buy items to prepare for the wintry weather that descended Monday.

Rebecca Sanders, director of public relations for Brookshire Grocery Co., said people were buying rock salt and cat litter to use for ice, as well as staples like bread, milk and eggs in case they have to be homebound for a while.

Ms. Sanders said stores throughout the region were continuing to see more customers than usual throughout Monday morning.

Brookshire’s stores will remain open throughout the weather unless otherwise instructed to close by corporate, which is pretty unusual unless power outages are experienced.

She said some employees have not been able to make it in to work at the stores.

“We want everybody to be safe,” she said.

Atwoods Ranch & Home in Tyler started seeing an increase in customers on Saturday. Tyler store manager Todd Evans said they have seen an increase in sales in things like kerosene heaters and fuel pellets for heaters, as well as coats and other clothing, salt and sand. As of around noon Monday, he said they still have people coming in and out of the store.

Atwoods had no plans to close the store but did have some employees who could not make it into work, Evans said.

Michael Kirkman, a manager at Home Depot, said they did not see people preparing for the weather this weekend but had an influx in customers Monday morning buying things like sale and sand. He said they were running out of those items quickly.

As conditions continued to deteriorate by late morning, customers were also dwindling. “Right now it is deader than a doornail,” he said at 11:30 a.m.

Lowe’s was also seeing an increase of people buying things like salt and sand Monday morning, a store representative said.

 

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