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CRANSTON, R.I. (WLNE) – At the beginning of this pandemic, millions of Americans headed out to the grocery store to find empty shelves, waiting in long lines to check out. Patrick Jones was not one of those people.
“I thought it was uncivil,” he said.
The Cranston man doesn’t consider himself a ‘prepper’, just someone who’s prepared for any- and everything, including the coronavirus pandemic.
“I haven’t been to the grocery store in probably a month. I most likely could go another month, yeah,” he said.
To Jones, being prepared is simple. But it doesn’t happen overnight.
He grabs a couple items here and there to add to his supply.
“Over the years I come in I buy two packages of food and I set it aside,” Jones said. “I go to the grocery store I buy two extra cans of food. That’s being prepared versus going out and cleaning shelves off and taking everything so no one else can buy it.”
The manager of Surplus Provisions, where Jones is a customer, says in the last two months they’ve seen sales spike six to seven-fold.
“People are coming in saying ‘I don’t have anything, this woke me up and said I need some type of bag or gear in case something happens.’ We sold a year supply of food storage in 2-3 weeks,” Tonya Calandra said.
As for Jones, he was turned on to preparedness when his house flooded in 2010, leaving his family without power for weeks.
“I had some camping gear and a marine battery and that was all we had so we were cooking on a camping stove and doing what we could to eat. And I promised my family that would never happen again,” Jones said.
Jones and his wife work in healthcare. He said he also learned skills like hunting and fishing to remain self-sufficient. His wife also makes masks for the community.
©WLNE-TV/ABC 6 2020
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