Irene Nears, Hopatcong Cleans Out Stores

Gianna Masino was just in time. The 19-year-old had spent the last hour searching for D batteries at her mother's request. was sold out. So was Pathmark. And so were two hardware stores.

Then Masino arrived at , reached into a plastic bucket and pulled out the last three.

Masino was lucky. The shelves of several Hopatcong stores, once filled with storm essentials, were empty come early Friday afternoon as worry grew about Hurricane Irene as it rushed up the East Coast and toward New Jersey. Gov. Chris Christie announced New Jersey was in a on Thursday.

Hopatcong Hardware owner Priscilla Sutphen said she tried making batteries, gas cans and flashlights readily available for customers.

"They're really scared of it," Sutphen said of the impending storm. Then she looked at the empty battery container. "They're gone. I put them right up there. Why are they walking around the store trying to find them? Because the day before they wiped me out. Wiped me out of anything that will give them light."

Sutphen said the hardware store wouldn't get another shipment of batteries until Tuesday.

"There's no way for you to know what you actually need to have," she said.

Minutes before, Paul Bezrutczyk and Andrew Edge visited Hopatcong Hardware for supplies. Bezrutczyk, a Long Island resident, has owned a home on Lake Hopatcong for 20 years. He came back to retreive his 13,000-watt generator and to wind-proof his home—tying down boats and kayaks. He said wind damage to his Hopatcong home worried him more than flood damage.

"I'm not worried about here because the biggest problem with most storms is flooding," he said. "And we've dealt with floods here before."

Edge, who's lived in Hopatcong for two years, walked out with two 2-gallon gas cans. He said he had just made a trip to Lowe's in Mount Olive, where a line of customers hoping for generators stretched about 50 feet.

"I was hoping they knew how to hook them up," Edge said.

Elizabeth Braun, a 16-year Hopatcong resident, said she got Rite Aid's last gallon of milk around 2 p.m. Braun said she was stocking up on canned goods in case her electricty goes out when Irene is expected to hit either late Saturday or early Sunday.

But Braun said she wasn't too concerned about the storm.

"I'm not that concerned because we're that much farther away from the coast," she said. "But if it does a little turn then we're in trouble."

Frank King might have been even luckier than Masino. The owner of struck out on his hunt for D batteries at Hopatcong Hardware and decided to try .

King struck gold. Deli owner Jashvant Patel sold King 3 and 1's last eight packages of the heavy-duty batteries, which King said he'd use for flashlights.

"Everybody is running around crazy, acting like the world is going to end," King said.