Villagers have been panic buying toilet paper as news spread of a port strike which could cause a potential threat to the nation’s supply chain.
“It’s ridiculous,” said a store a clerk, as she was restocking packages of toilet paper on empty shelves at the Walmart Neighborhood Market at Sarasota Plaza in The Villages.
The clerk said shoppers started coming in Tuesday and filling their carts with toilet paper.
“I don’t know how many times shoppers said, “Here it comes again, just like Covid,’” she said.
It was the same situation at the Publix grocery stores at Colony Plaza and Southern Trace Plaza, where shoppers had multiple king-sized packages of toilet paper in their carts. Shelves were beginning to thin out.
While public officials, suppliers and economists have tried to allay fears about a potential toilet paper shortage in the United States, Villagers apparently weren’t believing that message, having been burned in the great toilet paper purchasing frenzy at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
President Biden has vowed not to intervene in the strike at the ports, although Congressman Daniel Webster has urged the White House to take action.