Why did they clap?

"Clearly, the relative scarcity of ice after the storm is much higher.  The market price rises rapidly to reflect this increased scarcity. This makes people who would have used ice at the old price economize, and use something else. They can drink their bottled water, or their Carolina Ale, warm if they don’t want to pay $12 for a bag of ice. So ice only goes to people who really value it. And the higher price also signals yahoos, wahoos, and all sorts of regular folks that one can make boxloads of money by taking truckloads of ice to Raleigh. The price system is automatically doing its job, signaling to buyers that they should cut back, and signaling sellers (even potential sellers, those who have to enter the market from Goldboro) that they should sell more" (https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2007/Mungergouging.html).