You must live in a very weird part of the country. No such-like thing even remotely happening in NE Ohio. Went to the store tonite, actually, nothing missing from the heavily stocked shelves.
Actually, it was living through the blizzard of 1982, which wasn't predicted and a lot of people ran out of food, that started this grand tradition. It's like this any time the weather predictions are dire, as they are right now. We've got a sheen of ice with mist at about freezing, with more ice on the way turning to snow tomorrow afternoon. Accumulation is supposed to be 8", which isn't all that bad since we had 11" not even two weeks ago, but over a sheet of ice - that's another story.
After the storms of 2006, both the right-turn storm in July that year and the ice storm on December 1 that year when we lost power for days on end, we stock up, because there's no telling what we're up against. Even the electric company has called crews in from several states and they're camping out in shopping malls knowing that the line repairs are going to be extensive. Just preparing.