Texas Ice Storm: What Is Going On With the Lines At HEB?

With a winter storm headed toward Central Texas, local authorities are urging residents to get stocked up on non-perishable food items, water, and other emergency provisions. And it appears the public is taking that message seriously—if the long lines at area HEBs are any indication.

One TikTok video posted this week shows the lines at a downtown Austin HEB at 7:30 p.m. Although the process appeared orderly, there was clearly an influx of storm preppers getting last-minute necessities. One person who stocked up said, “I learned from Texas doing me wrong years ago.”

A second person agreed, “PTSD from the 2021 storm.”

It looks like the customers aren’t the only ones stressed around here. An HEB associate in Austin posted her meditation ritual ahead of her second day on duty. “Please know that you and all HEB workers are loved and appreciated,” wrote one customer in the comments.

Another woman posted the scene at her location last night. The ramen and canned tomato shelves of that particular store looked like a disaster.

In North Austin, a woman toured her neighborhood HEB at 6 a.m. While some of the produce displays were completely barren, the store overall looked relatively normal. One person remarked, “They’re gonna have a buffet for a 1-2 day storm.”

While state officials insist the overall Texas power grid will hold, a TikTok expert expressed concern that this could be a generational storm—potentially even worse than what Austinites experienced in 2021.

@w_whiterabbit.us