Dense Fog Snarls Morning Commute; Hardware Store Reports Run On Fog Lights
Tuesday's advisory cut visibility to 50 yards, and one hardware store sold out of two product lines before noon.
WAUKESHA — A dense fog advisory that dropped visibility to about 50 yards across the county Tuesday morning turned the Sunset Drive Do It Best hardware store into something resembling a run on a bank, with customers clearing out fog-light kits and reflective tape before most people had finished their coffee.
Store manager Lou Pritzlaff said the rush started around 6:40 a.m., shortly after the National Weather Service advisory went into effect, and didn't let up until well past the lunch hour.
"We moved 47 fog-light packages and over 200 feet of reflective tape before 11 a.m. One customer came in saying, 'I can't see my own bumper. What do I need to be visible?' We ended up selling out of two product lines by early afternoon."
— Lou Pritzlaff, store manager
A line for lights
By 7:15 a.m., Pritzlaff said, there were nine people waiting at the automotive aisle, several still in work uniforms, at least two with hazard flashers visibly left on in the parking lot. One customer, identified by Pritzlaff only as "the guy from the dental office on Grandview," bought three fog-light kits for a car that, by his own admission, seats five.
The store's entire stock of amber driving-light kits was gone by 9:50 a.m. A shipment of reflective magnetic strips, ordered in August and intended to last through winter, sold out in 40 minutes. Pritzlaff said he placed an emergency restock order at 10:15 a.m. and was told by his distributor that three other county stores had called in the same morning.
The fog was thick enough downtown that the Broadway train crossing arms came down for a passing freight train that several drivers reported not seeing until they were already stopped behind it, adding what Waukesha Police estimated as an extra 12 minutes to the morning commute on top of the usual delay.
Fog lights versus physics
Not every purchase panned out as hoped. Pritzlaff said at least four customers returned within the hour to ask why their new fog lights, mounted at bumper height as instructed, didn't noticeably help once the fog had thickened to what he called "pea soup, genuinely, not the expression." He explained, more than once, that fog lights work by aiming a wide, low beam under the fog layer rather than cutting through it, a distinction he said "does not land well at 7 a.m."
"I had a man ask for a refund on the lights and then, in the same breath, ask if we had anything brighter. I told him brighter isn't the problem. He bought a second set anyway."
— Lou Pritzlaff, store manager
For drivers who'd rather not experiment with bumper-mounted lighting during a 50-yard visibility event, a basic LED fog light kit (paid link) remains one of the store's steadier sellers in a normal week, Pritzlaff said, before adding that Tuesday was decidedly not a normal week.
Reflective tape, gone by midday
The reflective tape run was, in Pritzlaff's telling, the stranger of the two. Customers applied it to mailboxes, garbage cans left at the curb, and in one case a dog's leash, according to a photo texted to him by a regular customer. The city's Department of Public Works fielded four calls asking whether reflective tape could be requested for individual driveways; a DPW spokesperson said no such program exists and referred callers to existing street signage.
By 1 p.m., the advisory had lifted and visibility was back to normal along Sunset Drive, though Pritzlaff said he still had customers coming in through midafternoon "just in case it comes back tonight." The National Weather Service's forecast for Tuesday night calls for clear skies.
Pritzlaff said he's already placed a standing reorder for fog-light kits ahead of the fall fog season, which in Waukesha County, he noted, has a way of returning with little warning.