SPECIAL REPORT — Hardware dealers along the route of Tropical Storm Isaias were bracing themselves for its impact over the weekend. The storm hit the coast off Florida on Sunday without making landfall before making its way up the east coast. Since yesterday it has created rainy and windy conditions in Eastern Canada. Justin Harrington, manager of a Big Blue hardware store in Kingston, N.C., told the New York Times customers had begun stocking up on generators, flashlights and gas cans by the weekend.
“We always say test your equipment when you don’t need it because when you do need it, it’s an emergency,” Melissa Brett, co-owner of Welden Hardware in Simsbury, Conn., told NBC News. “Now we’re getting a lot of calls this afternoon: ‘It won’t start, what do I do?’”
In the Bahamas, the government gave hardware stores permission to open on Monday’s Emancipation Day holiday, but the Nassau Tribune reported that few seemed to take up the offer as the paper’s calls to several outlets went unanswered.
