As frigid forecast looms, shoppers race to stock up on supplies

Pushing a shopping cart with her 3-year-old daughter inside, Rachel Jones scanned the shelves of a Walmart in Arlington.

The mother of three planned to buy a few refrigerated items like milk and eggs, but she was on a mission to pick up nonperishable food: cereal, bread, peanut butter.

“We’ve learned our lesson,” said Jones, 32. “I just want to be on the safe side.”

She wasn’t the only one.

With an arctic cold front looming, shoppers raced Wednesday to stock up on groceries and winter-weather essentials like faucet covers, while others swarmed malls to finish last-minute Christmas shopping.

The front is expected to sweep into North Texas midmorning Thursday, bringing bitter cold and 45-mph winds. Friday morning, the low temperature is forecast in the single digits, with a wind chill of negative-5 to negative-10 degrees. Saturday’s high will hover in the low 30s before the region climbs above freezing on Sunday.

This week’s polar vortex comes nearly two years after a February 2021 winter storm paralyzed the state’s power system, leaving 240 people dead and millions without heat.

But even as meteorologists say this front won’t wreak the same havoc — North Texas isn’t expected to get snow or ice — and state officials promise the grid is reliable, the 2021 storm remains on the minds of many Texans.

Related:Live updates: North Texas under wind chill watch starting Thursday morning
Speaking at a news conference Wednesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott offered assurances that Texas is prepared at both the state and local levels for the “extraordinary cold weather” ahead.

Abbott said he anticipates the grid “will perform with ease,” and hopes the trust lost in 2021 will be “earned over the next few days.”

By noon Wednesday, a long line snaked around Jabo’s Ace Hardware in Fort Worth, where faucet covers were the best seller. Propane, space heaters, duct tape and “plankets,” or plant blankets, also sold briskly.

“I have a little more anxiety, but also more awareness,” said Emil Siongco, 53, who lives in Jacksonville in East Texas, as he shopped for warming packs to keep his well water from freezing. “My biggest worry is losing power, of course.”

His sister, Elaine Tubre, 47, said she wrapped pipes in her Fort Worth home with faucet covers, towels and duct tape, and might fill a bathtub with water. She also planned to schedule a grocery pickup before the front arrived.

“I don’t want to go out any more than I have to,” Tubre said.

Cierra Woody, Jabo’s merchandising coordinator, said the hardware store’s five North Texas locations sold more than 16,000 faucet covers on Monday alone. At Jabo’s in Coppell, winter shelves were bare by late Wednesday afternoon.

“Anything related to winter has flown off the shelves,” Woody said. “People can’t forget what happened.”

Winter essentials like faucet and plant covers sold out at Jabo’s Ace Hardware in Coppell on…
Winter essentials like faucet and plant covers sold out at Jabo’s Ace Hardware in Coppell on Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022. (Liesbeth Powers / Staff Photographer)
At University Park Village in Fort Worth, Anna Swann, 50, and her mother, Kitty Newbern, 77, finished some last-minute Christmas shopping.

With holiday music playing in the background, the mother and daughter said they were worried traveling family members would be delayed, as the storm is expected to disrupt travel. Other than that, Swann said, they weren’t particularly concerned.

“It will be cold, but I’m not worried,” said Swann, who was visiting from Tulsa. “Nothing stops me from shopping.”

Jones, in Arlington, said her family hoped to stay in for the next few days, wrap gifts and watch movies.

“We’ll try to enjoy this,” she said. “Who knows? By next week, we’ll probably be in a heat wave.”