Lights out, New York.
Hardware stores and pharmacies around the Big Apple were sold out of flashlights and batteries yesterday, as people furiously snatched up those items along with water, duct tape and window coverings to prepare for Irene’s arrival.
At Home Depot on West 23rd Street in the Flatiron District, the entire display for flashlights was empty, and most of the batteries were sold out by midday, as customers packed the aisles scooping up other emergency musts.
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Duane Reades and other pharmacies in the city posted signs alerting customers to the fact that “C” and “D” batteries — the kinds often used in large flashlights — were sold out.
“Everything is gone,” moaned Home Depot manager Fitni Istrefi, who was anxiously awaiting a shipment of replacement flashlights.
Several aisles away, Jim Goerl, 49, was carrying five small gasoline containers that he planned to use to fill up the electrical generator at his home in Wayne, NJ, ahead of the hurricane.
Goerl said his wife had been unable to find those and other items yesterday in New Jersey, after going from store to store to stock up on storm-related necessities.
“Everything is wiped out over there,” he said.
Bedford-Stuyvesant resident Isabella Riojas, a 29-year-old therapist, hit Home Depot to buy several rolls of duct tape.
“I live in a brownstone, and my friends from the Caribbean told me to tape my windows in a criss-cross,” Riojas said.
“They also told me to fill up my bathtub with water. I just think it’s better to be prepared. Prepared and pretty.”
At the Stop & Shop grocery store in The Rockaways, 46-year-old Geraldine Walsh was patiently standing in line to buy a cart full of food.
“I am getting water, milk, turkey, dry cereal and beer, just in case a party breaks out,” Walsh quipped.
“I’m buying things that you don’t have to use the refrigerator for, in case the electricity goes out. Peanut butter and jelly, bread, and snacks for the kids.
“I’m an optimist, not a pessimist. I’m hoping that [the hurricane] takes a sharp turn in another direction.”
In Huntington, LI, Anthony DiClemente, an analyst at Barclays Capital, said he visited four gas stations yesterday in a bid to fill up his car, but each one had completely sold out of gasoline.
One place that had gas, the Hess station in Wainscott, LI, was pumping 3,000 gallons an hour as cars lined up 50-deep.
“It’s been crazy here since this morning,” said an overwhelmed employee. “People are getting frustrated, and honking and yelling. I guess it’s better to have it now than when the storm hits.”
Additional reporting by Ikimulisa Livington and Clarie Atkinson