DAYTON, Ohio— As the coronavirus continues to spread, many people have taken to their local stores to stock up. That means lots of wipes, hand sanitizer, and even toilet paper is sold out. But for those in the world of preparedness, they’re ready for whatever might happen.

• Survivalist stores like Omega Outdoor and Emergency Supply have seen an increase in customers
• Those in preparedness say it’s too late to fully prepare for the coronavirus. They say it’s critical to be prepared before anything happens.
• Ideally, it’s best to have water, food and a first aid kit on hand

Inside Omega Outdoor and Emergency Supply is just about everything you might need to survive in case of disaster. Owner Matt Jones has been interested in preparedness since he was a Boy Scout. He says he’s been seeing more than just his regular customers lately.

“Whenever anything big happens is when more of the mainstream of society gets interested in preparedness,” Jones said.

Jones started his business six years ago in Dayton. He says because of the panic and fear coronavirus has caused, now it’s too late to be fully prepared.

“You can’t wait for some event to happen to prepare,” Jones said. “It doesn’t work that way. That’s why people that pay attention to disaster preparedness plans; that’s why we do what we do. Because we don’t want to be out there fighting people in Kroger for the last bottle of water.”

But he says it’s never too late to learn more about preparedness and what you might need. Customers have come in and wiped out the store’s supply of masks and continue to buy the basics. He says the most important thing to have on hand is water or a water filter.

“A water filter, you can take water right out of the Ohio River, right out of the Great Miami River into a bottle like this,” Jones explained. “It’s got the water filter built right in.”

He also says having a basic supply of food that won’t go bad is important- especially with the coronavirus and possibility to be quarantined for 14 days.

“If you just want to get ready for a couple of weeks, you could get canned goods or boxed goods from the store, the would be fine,” he said. “The difference between that and pre-prepared storage food is that pre-prepared food, of course, is packaged to last 25 plus years.”

Jones says the last of the basic needs is a first aid kit, which oftentimes includes items that are highly sought after right now.

“One of the things that would be in your medical preparedness kit are going to be things like N95 masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, alcohol, antiseptic wipes,” he said.

While Jones’ store has several more items for the more experienced survivalists, he says it’s important to start somewhere so that you’re never left without your basic needs in case of disease, natural disaster, or power outages. 

“This is the importance of why we want to do this ahead of time when things are normal, and everything’s good because you’ll see the rush every time whenever anything happens,” Jones said.