BAGHDAD — As fast as butcher Shakir Salman can hang the skinned, headless sheep from hooks in his shop, customers scurry away with armloads of fresh meat.
Homemaker Manar Shumari is frantically stocking up on diapers for her 2-year-old. "I bought some yesterday, but I came again today, just to be sure," she said.
At Medical City in Baghdad, doctors are dragging mattresses into their offices and bunking in vacant nursing-home beds, preparing for the possibility of widespread bloodshed.
Amid excitement and fear over Sunday's election, Iraqis are in a mad rush to prepare for an unprecedented three-day national lockdown. With insurgents vowing to disrupt the balloting and kill voters, U.S. and Iraqi security forces have imposed a lengthy set of emergency security measures.
Starting Saturday, borders will be sealed and the airport will be shut down. Government offices and most companies will take a three-day holiday. Nightly curfews begin at 7 p.m. and last until 6 a.m.
In addition, cars will be banned from roads unless occupants have special election badges, except in cases of medical emergency.
Traffic in Baghdad, a city that loves cars as much as Los Angeles does, appeared Thursday to be down by about half. Road closures and police checkpoints made navigating the capital difficult. Many drivers said they wouldn't risk taking to the roads, noting that insurgents had threatened to attack anyone attempting to vote or assisting in the election.
"I'm staying home," said Ali Mohammed, 40, a government employee who was filling plastic jerrycans with black-market gas. "We don't know what's going to happen."
Though he won't be driving, but Mohammed said he needed the fuel to run a generator to compensate for chronic electricity failures.
Demand for gas, food and emergency supplies has spurred a price surge. Black-market prices for gasoline doubled from $1.30 a gallon last week to $2.70 a gallon Thursday. Potatoes that sold for 22 cents for a little more than two pounds on Monday sold for 55 cents Thursday.
Long lines snaked out of bakeries selling samoun, a popular bread. Grocery stores were selling out of water, eggs, canned food and rice.
Iraqis, who over the last two decades have grown accustomed to hunkering down, are preparing for the worst.
"Many people are scared," said Ahmed Abdullah, 36, a taxi driver who charged double his usual fare this week. "But so what? For one reason or another, we've been scared all our lives."
