Alaska Farm Supply is a go-to spot for farmers in the Matanuska Susitna Borough. At the shop yard in Palmer, bags of animal feed tower like mini skyscrapers.
“Each pallet is one ton,” said owner Todd Bagetis while pointing to the top of a tower of animal feed.
The closest active volcano to Anchorage, Mount Spurr, could erupt within weeks or months, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory. Bagetis said many of his customers are stocking up on supplies to prepare for a possible Spurr eruption in the coming weeks or months.
Right now, he said the company has at least two times more feed in stock than normal.
“Where somebody would come in and they would get a bag or two, they're coming in and getting 10 or 15 a week,” Bagetis said. “If something happens, it'll hold them off. They’ll have enough feed to get by.”
Mount Spurr is located about 80 miles from Anchorage. The volcano’s color code switched to yellow, or “advisory status” in March and many local businesses started preparing by stocking up on essential supplies. Southcentral business owners say that being locally owned helps them respond to customer needs more effectively.
“A lot of people are rushing around to try to get temporary shelters and temporary places where they can filter the air, such as garages, barns,” Bagetis said.
That potential risk has caused customers of AK Bark, a pet store in Anchorage, to start preparing, too.
Mark Robokoff, the store’s owner, said there was a huge surge in demand for protective gear for dogs after the alert level changed. The hot ticket items include booties, full body rain coats and dog goggles– or doggles.
There’s one item though that’s flying off the shelves: dog masks. They look similar to the ones humans wear and cost $6.95. The store is only selling masks through pre-order and there’s a list of customers waiting for the next delivery.
“We have now pre-sold over 1,000 of those dog masks,” he said. “I immediately got online and found some masks that were available.”
AK Bark wasn’t selling dog masks before the volcano’s status switched to advisory, but the other items are carried year-round. It can be tough to find ash-preparedness gear at big-box pet stores, Robokoff said.
The last few weeks have been extremely busy, Robokoff said, but he’s happy to see his customers preparing to protect their dogs.
Robokoff said being an Alaskan-owned business helps him understand and respond to his customers’ preparation needs.
“This is the time for small businesses,” Robokoff said. “We were already kind of positioned well to address this crisis, but because we are a locally owned business, because we're so locally focused, we were able to pivot and react to these local circumstances very quickly.”
Both Robokoff and Begetis from AK Farm Supply say they’re preparing for an ashfall to impact merchandise shipment. Port officials say an eruption could cause minor maritime delays, but will “probably be measured in hours, not days or weeks.” State officials expect parts of Southcentral could see up to a quarter-inch of ash if Spurr erupts.
The last time Spurr erupted was in 1992. The city was blanketed in about an eighth of an inch of ash, shutting down the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport for 20 hours.
If Spurr’s color code changes to orange or “watch” status, Alaska Industrial Hardware (AIH) president and CEO Terry Shurtleff thinks stores like his will get busier.
“In our experience, only about 10% or at the very most, 20% of people will act before the incident,” he said. “Then the other 80% are in a rush.”
Like AK Bark, masks have been selling quickly at the AIH in south Anchorage, but these ones are for humans.
AIH is asking employees to have preparedness plans so they can come to work. Shurtleff said it’s important the business stays open during an eruption so they can get customers essential supplies.
“We're prepared to serve Alaska when Alaska needs it,” Shurtleff said. “That’s our culture. I like to think that it's Alaska culture, really.”
If Spurr erupts, Shurtleff said he expects the business would sell more brooms and industrial sweepers because they’re recommended for ash cleanup.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the location of AK Farm Supply. The store is in Palmer, not Wasilla.
