When it snows at the beach, a sort of organized frenzy sets in, and the grocery stores become packed, the few snow shovels are sold out, and the excitement is palpable.

"It's been busy. It's been slammed all day," said Bea Gilliard at Kroger Grocery Store in Carolina Forest.

Grand Strand residents are used to dealing with hurricanes, tornadoes and lots of rain, but snow is a different story.

"The customers have been saying 'it's going to snow! We left the North to come down here; we come down here, and now we got it down here?'" Gilliard explained as she scanned item after item.

Those Northern transplants chuckle at the way Southerners handle the snow, but even the snow warriors are taking an extra step to stock up.

"I'm getting milk. I am ... just in case everybody does go nuts," said Massachusetts native Susan Moody.

"To me, it's nothing. I'm from New Hampshire. So to us, it's like a dusting, but here, it paralyzes the whole area," said Lewis Eaton as he left the grocery store.

If it's not groceries, it's snow shovels people are looking for. Wait, snow shovels? At the beach?

"We don't really carry (snow shovels)," said Kerry Southerland who owns Hamp's TrueValue Hardware in Conway.

"We sold about five grain shovels today which are wide shovels. They work, so they're gone," she said.

Southerland, though, is selling more propane than shovels, as the unusually cold winter was already driving demand.

"We've been selling out. We sell out every three days," said Mike Bryant, an employee at Hamp's.

"And especially, they talking about snow right now. People scared of the snow. Around here they ain't used to that," Bryant said.

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