Posted on 09/06/2005 11:14:46 PM PDT by Cedar
GREENVILLE - A rumor spread on Saturday created a panic in the city and caused untold damage to area stores from mobs of people trying to secure food supplies and other items using emergency food stamp vouchers.
Wal-Mart, both Kroger stores, Kmart, Bing's and other smaller stores in the city were left in shambles Saturday night after hundreds of people ransacked food shelves, assaulted some employees trying to get at food supplies and ripped open boxes and pallets of food before employees could restock shelves.
Welfare recipients in the county were issued emergency food stamp vouchers on Friday and Saturday by personnel with the Mississippi Department of Human Services. A rumor was subsequently spread in the city that the vouchers had to be used by midnight Saturday or they were no longer good.
That rumor sparked the panic buying by welfare recipients and created the problems for area merchants.
The vouchers were to accommodate for the downtime the department has had in dispensing welfare monies to Electronic Benefit Transfer accounts due power outages caused by Hurricane Katrina.
Wal-Mart was hit so hard that store officials finally closed the store at 11 p.m. Saturday due to the unsafe conditions in which shoppers had left aisles.
Eye witness accounts from several Saturday evening shoppers at Wal-Mart told of people grabbing food before store personnel could get pallets out of stock rooms.
Bread, meats, juices, water, boxed items and canned goods were hot items. Store employees had to be pulled from other departments just to handle the panic buying and clean up aisles, which were nearly impassable from dumped food items and broken cartons of items, which made the floors dangerous and unsafe to use.
On Sunday morning, scores of shopping carts could be seen near the customer service area where Saturday shoppers had left them following the frenzied activity of many of the shoppers.
None of the store associates or management talked to would go on record, but they did confirm that the store was closed on Saturday evening for safety reasons and because store personnel couldn't restock shelves fast enough.
Store personnel were still cleaning up the mess mid-morning Sunday while shelves were nearly bare of many items.
Art Rusk, manager at Bing's County Market on Mississippi 1 North, said this morning that his store did more business Saturday then all of the previous week.
Derrick Williams, a truck driver for Mrs. Baird's, restocked bread on shelves in Super Value, in the Goyer Shopping Center.
"They were snatching it up as fast as I could put in on Saturday," said Williams, who also had to make several emergency runs for several stores that had run out of bread over the weekend.
Kroger officials would not comment for the record, but there was confirmed at least one altercation on Saturday due to shopping requiring police involvement, as witnessed by a caller to the newspaper on Sunday.
I grew up in Wichita and it was a capital crime to call the Ar..Kansas river the Arkansas(W) river.
"You have to be literate to read the expiration date."
Literate?? But they went to school and they got Self Esteem!!!!
Thank the NEA, kids....
Wow. A relative of mine emailed it to ME today.
Guess it's going around. It is great, though.
I'm sick of it!
So am I! It's crazy to pay stupid lazy people to breed. All you get is more stupid lazy people you'll have to support. I say end welfare. We don't need welfare when illegal immigrants can find jobs.
Don't feel like the lone ranger. Sometimes I think I'm the only one not receiving a government handout.
Thanks, for your service to our country. I just wish there were more people here worth your trouble.
I believe they now use EBT (electronic bank transfer) cards instead of stamps. Got to protect the esteem of the welfare recipients you know. As Neal Boortz calls them....Push Button Pirates or Electronic Plunder.
A little off topic, but if you live anywhere in a "hurricane prone" area, and don't have hurricane supplies on hand, I'd suggest you stock up now.
After this big storm, and the devastation witnessed on TV, people will freak out if a storm is headed your way and the stores will be a madhouse.
You could save yourself a lot of headaches if you anticipate this, and just do your stocking up now, instead of waiting to hear if a storm is headed your way.
No wonder many of them look like prize hogs. Kennedy and Jesse want US to feel responsible for the poverty of these freeloaders. It would help them to join society if they demonstrated a little civilized behavior.
Maybe they are Catholic.
They are called Oregon Trail cards in our state. That is really what Title on the cards read.
Damn it, what on earth is WRONG with these "people", anyway??????????
I swear that the welfare state has created a class of sociopathic monsters.
There was a rumor being spread that a class action suit had been filed and settled against a manufacturer of baby formula and all you had to do to get your share of the free money was to mail in a copy of your baby's birth certificate. We heard that the monetary awards were anywhere from $1500 to $25k!
The majority of these women were black and from the inner-city. They were also wearing leather coats, had their nails professionally done and driving vehicles far better than mine. (And I'm pretty sure none of them had ever actually paid for baby formula as it is free through WIC and other Gov't. programs.)
This went on for 2 weeks and as the deadline grew closer, the crowd got uglier and ruder (and I'm being polite in the description). People were actually express mailing (about $12 at the time)their copies. By time I left work Friday night, I was seething (which is not normal for me). I spent the better part of the weekend being pissed off at the system and down-right wrongness of the situation.
When I got to work Monday, we found out that the whole refund thing was a hoax. I couldn't stop smiling all day!!
"They are called Oregon Trail cards in our state. That is really what Title on the cards read."
In Maryland they're called "Independence" cards. An oxymoron to make sure the morons' don't suffer from low self esteem. And they are usually over 200 lbs. (Thats the women!)
Scuba gear optional...
Idaho, Alaska.
bookmark
I see this every time they call for snow here.
Government created dependence gone bad. Socialists want to continue the experiment on a much grander scale.
Welfare queens gone wild - coming to theaters soon.
I resent that. I live in Mississippi and I work hard and so do most of the people in this state. Quit stereotyping us just because we have a bunch of welfare recipients in the Mississippi Delta.
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