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If you were to tell me that a hurricane MIGHT hit Vancouver in a week, my skinny ass would have visited the BANK, HOME DEPOT (for lumber, tools, jerry cans), the GAS STATION (with 10 jerry cans full of emergency gas), the SUPERMARKET (water, non-perishable food), and the PHARMACY (prescriptions, anti-biotics, general goods) within 6 hours.
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In reality it could take alot longer than 6 hours to do errands by the time you know youre in a redzone. Bank would take you an hour (if open at all). Home Depot about 2.5. Gas station about 2 (once you find one with gas and wait in line in the street), supermarket, 2.5 easy and the pharmacy about an hour. (Mostly Lines and finding alternatives when there are shortages. Last year at the Grocery store all the lines went to the back of the store and turned, over 80 people in EACH line.
We learned to consolidate our trips. Pharmacies often have small food marts in them, you pickup whatever you can find as soon as you see it, mostly water and ice. HomeDepot is a must but they also sell water and other essentials. Gas stations have ATMs so that's the first stop. Use your credit card or debit card to reserve cash. The trick is to get what you can as fast as you can yes, but it's a crazy scramble and if you wait to get water till you get to the grocery store you are sadly out of luck. Last year we even raided vending machines for bottled water, there was NONE to be found ANYWHERE over a day before the storm hit. Home Depot got a delivery 2 days before the storm and was out of water as well, 5 pallets in 3 hours sold.
I hear ya tho, you can see it coming but you never know if it will affect you and how much. Since June whenever I go to the store I always buy a few extras (water, canned goods) and I keep a "hurricane" kit in a large plastic bin where we keep everything from batteries, flashlights, candles, sterno cans, glowsticks, ducttape, first aid, etc to keep the items we need to "scramble" for last minute to a minimum. This is what has been drilled into every Floridian all year long since I can remember. There are only 3 major N/S interstates to get out of south Florida, I coudn't imagine trying to EVAC 8 million people through the bottle neck that is our state.
I sure wish all those people luck. No matter how prepared you are, anything can happen.