Village residents empty store shelves ahead of Hurricane Milton’s arrival

Village residents clear store shelves ahead of the expected arrival of Hurricane Milton.

Bottled water was number 1 on villagers’ Sunday shopping lists.

On Sunday, a clerk at Publix in Colony Plaza in The Villages was busy restocking shelves with bottled water.

Employees at Publix in Colony Plaza and the nearby Walmart in Sarasota Plaza did what they could to refill water supplies to keep up with customer demand.

Water was in high demand at the Walmart at Sarasota Plaza on Sunday.

Batteries were also a hot commodity.

While many rural residents stocked up on toilet paper for fear of a strike at the nation’s ports, paper goods sales began again on Sunday as Hurricane Milton raged across the Gulf of Mexico.