People stocking up ahead of arctic plunge set to hit North Texas
DALLAS - It was nice outside Thursday, but now is the time for North Texans to get their homes winter ready with temperatures set to drop over the next few days.
On the warmest day of the year so far, crews at Burn This Firewood in Garland were busy helping people prepare for the worst winter has to offer.
"I expect that anything burnable will be gone by the end of Saturday," said Amy Langbein Heath, owner of Texas Tree Surgeons and Burn This Firewood.
Firewood, which seemed like more of a luxury before the 2021 storm, is now part of winter safety preps for those seeking alternative heat if the power fails.
"The customers from 2021, who were without power a long time, had their wood delivered earlier this fall," Langbein said. "It’s the ones who probably didn’t have it last time who are showing up right now."
At Hall's Grocery in Colleyville, piles of wood are in high demand.
James Benjamin was one of the first people in line Thursday morning to stock up ahead of a possible wintry mix on Sunday.
"It's best to get your wood [Thursday] or [Friday] while the weather is still decent," he said.
Shop owner Charlie Hall said he had five semi-trucks full of wood here on Wednesday.
"We got a storm coming. This is going to be a cold one, just as simple as that," Hall said.
His gas pumps were flowing too.
That's where Duncan Riley was filling up several gas cans.
"We just want to make sure we can keep the house warm with the generator if need be. Not suffer the consequences of broken pipes, or what not," Riley said.
North Texans should prepare their homes, pipes for freezing temperatures next week
With those bitterly cold temperatures in the forecast, now is the time to prepare your home to avoid dealing with broken pipes later.
In Dallas, employees at Elliott's Hardware are busy keeping their shelves stocked with the winter essentials as they are seeing the pre-storm rush.
As one might expect, faucet, pipe, and landscaping covers are the number one selling items right now.
"We just noticed [Wednesday] a lot more people were buying heaters and ice melt, so once we noticed the trend coming, we started going to the backroom and getting heat-related items to the sales floor," Elliott's Hardware GM Welmon Mays said.
Julie McGuire stopped in to pick up a few things, including ice melt for her outdoor stairs.
"It gets pretty wild here. It's like if you don't plan, it happens, so hopefully, since I planned for it, nothing will happen," McGuire joked.
Officials urge people to make any preparations before the winter weather hits and it becomes difficult to run out and get what you need in a pinch.
The city's unsheltered residents are being taken care of too.
Thursday afternoon, Chris Bailey dropped nearly 400 sleeping bags at Austin Street Center in Dallas.
Bailey started a social media campaign eight years ago called Everybody Love Everybody.
Hundreds of do-gooders pitch in to make life-saving donations like this possible.
"This started eight years ago when I saw a story on the news that a woman was found slumped over in her wheelchair on a DART platform and she froze to death. We started the sleeping bag drive the next day," Bailey said.
The city of Dallas may make an inclement weather shelter declaration and open temporary inclement weather shelters during the winter if the temperature is forecasted to be 36 degrees in wet weather or 32 degrees in dry weather for four hours or more.