Community Corner
New Rochelle Bulks Up for Irene
New Rochelle residents are stocking up on necessities as they prepare for Hurricane Irene, which weather forecasts continue to call an "extraordinary threat."
There's a hurricane on the horizon, and New Rochelle residents geared up to survive it. Most just went for the essentials.
Carlos Garcia, grocery manager for on Pelham Road, said, “Just in case something goes wrong, people like to have something extra. They buy soups, bread. Everybody gets scared.”
Garcia said he saw one man walk out with 10 cases of 1-gallon bottled-water six-packs. That's about $60 for for 60 gallons of water. This man, though, is not alone.
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Angelica Calce, another employee at the Met, said that the store is already sold out of milk and eggs, and they've been continually restocking water and batteries all day Friday.
The parking lots for ShopRite and on Palmer Avenue were almost completely filled around noon Friday.
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Inside the Stop & Shop, milk and yogurt cases were picked through. There was little choice in prepackaged deli meats.
Hundreds of people pushed overflowing shopping carts up and down crowded aisles, while lines at checkout counters were, at times, five or six people deep.
Weather.com's home page calls Hurricane Irene "an extraordinary threat for NC, Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and New England." The same site claims that Hurricane Irene could become a "more destructive hurricane to hit the East Coast in at least several decades."
Dean Young, part-owner of Mamaroneck's squash club, , knows from experience that it's better not to take chances.
“Mamaroneck was flooded out about seven years ago,” he said, “so we’re quite concerned." he said. "Actually the flood practically put the last owner [of Westcheser Squash] out of business. The guy that we just purchased it from. I think it was closed for a month or something.”
Young, who bought the club this past May, cleaned out a Home Depot near his home in Norwalk, CT, of storm sand Thursday night. But by the time he got to the on Weyman Avenue in New Rochelle, all they had left was sandbox sand—which he bought anyway.
Young is also planning on boarding up the windows of his club and trying to speed up a tournament his club is hosting this weekend. If that fails, the losses could be significant.
“This is our biggest moneymaker right now,” Young said. “We need it, desperately.”
