Stores having hard time keeping essentials on shelves during coronavirus outbreak

In many cases, the shelves were empty.

"The store is empty," said Michael Welke. "The freezer sections are gone, like they don’t have anything in the store almost."

From the fruit to the soup and the milk, shelves are empty around many Triangle stores.

Everybody is buying," Welke said. "A lot of food, just in case they’re stuck inside for the next 30 days or something like that."

Trader Joe's employees were busy restocking shelves with canned goods. There wasn’t much fruit to pick through at a Harris Teeter location we stopped at.

"Actually, none of the stuff I came for, one thing was there," Welke said. "The Trader Joe’s cookies, that was it, everything else was gone.

John Faulhaber stocked up at Costco.

"Ziplock bags, so we can put all the meat in stuff that we bought," Faulhaber said. "Just in case we get quarantined at home, they tell you we can’t go out."

WRAL's Mark Boyle showed lines wrapping around the retail giant store earlier Friday in a Facebook live, but Faulhaber said it died down later in the day.

"About 10 minutes, the checkout wasn't bad either," Faulhaber said.

But like most stores, they didn’t have one item almost everyone is looking for.

"There's no toilet paper in the building to be had," Faulhaber said. "Costco's out.

There was no toilet paper in all the stores we checked. Some stores were also running low or completely out of bread, eggs and water bottles. Stores were in stock with baby food.

Grocery stores begin returning to regular operating hours