Fairfax County Residents Prepare For Winter Storm

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA — On Thursday, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger declared a state of emergency ahead of this weekend's winter storm. The latest forecast predicts 10 inches of snow falling on the Washington, D.C. region, bringing cold temperatures with it.

In anticipation, Fairfax County residents began flocking to area hardware stores to stock up on shovels, bags of salt, and sleds.

"Today, with the ice threat, a lot more people are looking for things like kerosene and propane, firewood, batteries," said Rebecca Russell, an office manager and self-described jack of all trades at McLean Hardware. "Some people are getting candles. And then, obviously, we have our regular customers that are still doing plumbing jobs and everything."

Provided they have merchandise to sell, McLean Hardware tries to to make sure that the customers are happy, especially leading up to a big storm.

"We have a lot of employees that are working extra hours, extra shifts. We're getting all sorts of different truckloads in," she said. "But if there is a situation where either we don't have anything that anybody would be able to sell and none of our employees can get to the store safely, we will close the store. We have done that in the past because our employee safety is first priority."

Related: State Of Emergency Declared In VA, 10+ Inches Of Snow Expected

Tyler, the manager at Ace Hardware in Fairfax City, said that he has seen a lot of extra foot traffic in the store from Tuesday night and into Wednesday.

In the next couple of days, trucks will be delivering additional Ice Melt, which has been in high demand, according to Tyler.

"Every winter is different," he said. "You can never count on the weather here. But, we try to be as prepared as possible, and it's always a fair bit of excitement and activity when the weather finally comes through."