NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — All across Hampton Roads, shoppers may notice a lot of empty shelves when walking into grocery stores. This includes paper towels, bottles of water, and most notably: toilet paper.
Shoppers told 13News Now it's reminiscent of what they saw during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Just empty shelves on the toilet papers - the bigger ones there's probably like two left in there and only 10-15 of the tiny ones in there," said one shopper.
"Yesterday I saw a guy in line with 12 frozen pizzas," added another shopper. "He also walked out with a lot of toilet paper."
Financial experts are linking the sudden rush for essential items as "panic buying." It comes just two days after port strikes across the East and Gulf coast have halted commercial shipping.
Kuntal Bhattacharyya, the director of supply chain logistics at Old Dominion University, said consumers are not yet feeling the impacts from the lack of shipping. This absence of essential items strictly comes from consumer's fears that supplies could become limited in the future, and so they are stocking up on what they don't really need.
He said there are several measures in place within the economy and manufacturing groups to make sure shortages like this do not become real problems.
"There are multiple cushions in place for situations just like this, because think about it, these manufacturing companies are also looking at the same forecast that shoppers are," said Bhattacharyya. "They are preparing just as much as consumers."
As of right now, there are no buying restrictions in place as shopping continues across Hampton Roads. However, the situation could change if panic buying continues.