Water is water- a flat of shrink wrapped bottles is heavy, too. Obviously the folks buying water just hours ahead of the storm barrelling down on them didn't plan far ahead. But just a little advanced planning could save a lot of money. Really good five-gallon and seven-gallon Aquatainers are less than $14 at Wally World. Heck, you can buy brand new clean 5 gallon pails with lids for $3 or less. It doesn't look like people are buying bottled water to bug out but to ride it out.