She had never lived through a hurricane before. At least, none that she could remember. She was alive during Hurricane Catrina, but she had been only a year old at the time and was nowhere near the storm. Tropical Storm Harvey had just been categorized as a hurricane and everyone in Corpus Christi was preparing for the upcoming damage that would be inflicted on their homes.
Nadine stepped out of her car into the parking lot as the wind picked up. The oncoming storm was warning her of its quick approach. She could feel it. She navigated her way through the cars and entered the crowded hardware store. She grabbed a cart and headed towards the wood section first. The windows on the house would need to be covered during the storm to prevent the glass from being broken by flying debris.
She looked through the available options as the people on either side of her in the aisle placed the wood they wanted into their own carts. She located the type of wooden boards she wanted and checked her phone for the proper measurements. Yes, these would do. She approached one of the workers and he gladly cut some of the boards to the specific measurements she needed. That taken care of, she headed towards the nails.
She checked her phone for the type she needed to get. She looked back at the options. Those ones. Screws, not regular nails. She added them to her cart and left in search of sandbags to prevent flooding water from leaking under the doors into the house. These were harder for her to find but she did see other people with some in their carts so there had to be some here. She approached another worker and asked directions. He pointed her toward the right aisle, warning that the store was running low on the sandbags, so she hurried to reach the aisle.
There were four sandbags left. That would not be enough to provide full protection, but it was something. She snatched the sandbags into her cart as another customer entered the aisle and hurried to the checkout counters. She would have to find more sandbags at another store. For now, she had a majority of the materials she needed to protect her house. She texted her father with the update as the cashier ran the cost.
She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to see a man behind her. “Would you be willing to part with the sandbags?” he asked.