Local businesses saw a huge spike in the sale of ice, bottled water, generators, fans and dehumidifiers Wednesday as customers affected by Monday's nights storms sought ways to deal with its aftermath.

Tim Teehan, vice president of Tinley Park Ice, said the company is getting calls for additional ice from its customers throughout the region, "everywhere there's no power."

"A guy who normally takes one delivery a week is calling twice a day, and a few, three times," said Teehan, of Munster. "It happens every time there's a power outage and it's warm outside."

The company also is seeing a big increase in walk-in traffic for the dry ice available at its Tinley Park location, 6750 North St.

Bill Bach, manager of the Strack & Van Til store in Munster, said he's sure the sale of bottled water will increase because of the boil order issued by the municipality Tuesday.

"People are buying the big jugs, the refrigerator packs," he said.

Cheryl Mattingly was at the store buying one of the 2 1/2 gallon jugs to use for cooking Wednesday.

"We're drinking the bottled water I had at home, but I need a lot to cook with," the Munster resident said. "I also need it to fill my dogs' bowls."

Mattingly lives in the section of the town that still was without power Wednesday afternoon. Electricity for her refrigerator was coming from a generator.

"We bought one during the storm last year and I was able to get the sump pump going," she said. "My mother, who lives on Greenwood, didn't have (a generator) so her basement got water in it. (On Tuesday), they went to Lowe's and bought one."

Brad McClellan, manager of Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse in Schererville, said the store has seen "way more business than normal" in generators, gas cans and extension cords, wet/dry vacuums, dehumidifiers, fans, chain saws and sump pumps and their battery backup systems.

"We had some generators on hand and sold through everything we had last night," he said. "But we had an emergency load on the way and were back in stock this morning and have more coming in yet today," he said Wednesday. "We monitor the weather and take an educated guess, but once it happens we react to it immediately."

Don Elleraas, store manager of the Schererville Sears Hardware, said there were three generators in the store when it opened Tuesday morning and they immediately were sold.

"We got in 80 generators this morning -- they placed an emergency order for us yesterday -- and 20 have been sold," Elleraas said at 11 a.m. Wednesday. "If we had them yesterday, we would have sold them all."