For nearly a week, weather forecasters have been talking about a monster of a storm, Hurricane Florence, which is churning in the Atlantic southeast of Wilmington, North Carolina, packing 130 mile-per-hour maximum sustained winds.

This week, a quarter of a million residents of low-lying Coastal Virginia were asked to evacuate, effective 8 a.m. Tuesday, to get out of the path of the powerful Category 4 hurricane.

The impending storm and evacuation order also sparked the closing of schools in both Gloucester and Mathews for an indefinite period of time starting on Tuesday and has caused countless residents to travel to local businesses to stock up on items to prepare for the worst. 

Much of Mathews County and portions of Gloucester are included in a mandatory evacuation order for residents in “Zone A” that was implemented by Gov. Ralph Northam on Monday evening. The Middle Peninsula could begin seeing Tropical Storm conditions as early as tonight, according to the Nat...