HOUSTON – Houstonians are preparing for a potential freeze this week.
On Tuesday, days ahead of the possible freeze, customers at Bering’s Hardware were stocking up on supplies.
“We lost everything,” customer Kay Lee Werlin recalled.
Werlin walked the aisles at Bering’s to make sure she was prepared ahead of time for the possible severe weather event.
“I didn’t have enough insulating papers to wrap my plants and I was afraid we are going have another deep freeze,” she said.
This time, she’s taking extra precautions for the swift weather changes.
“All mine are blooming things and I just don’t want to lose them,” she said.
Floor supervisor, Michael Taylor, said Werlin isn’t the only customer stocking up. Unfortunately, he added that the supply chain issues aren’t making it easy to keep the shelves stocked.
“That has been a mess, to say the least,” he said. “We probably didn’t receive 30% of the stuff we ordered because of it.”
Though, there’s still plenty to go around like faucet covers.
“It’s got a little rubber band to hold it in place, you just slip it over the faucet,” Taylor said.
He said there’s also another faucet attachment that’s popular.
“This is called the Freeze Miser, and what’s unique about it is that you attach it to your faucet and when the temperature gets below 32 degrees freezing, it opens up the valve, allowing water to drip through,” he described.
Over at GenPro warehouse on Blalock Road, owner Ashton Tennant said the generator demand is high.
They began preordering for this season almost a year ago after the February freeze.
“(It’s) Very difficult to keep up with all the phone calls,” he said.
He said there are a few factors leading to a six to nine-month wait.
“(The) Biggest challenge is I think supply chain factories are just making it and getting it to us,” he said.
Tennant said there is also a worker shortage for installations.
“We had to relearn our whole process,” he said.