Another epidemic hit Hawaii on Friday.

It wasn’t coronavirus, but to some it was pretty dreadful: a message about a Hawaii shipping shutdown.

The message was false. But versions of it spread faster than COVID-19 and prompted some residents to engage in even more panic buying of food, toilet paper and other supplies than has been going on for more than two weeks in the islands — where most consumer goods arrive from the mainland by ship.

Local government officials have repeatedly urged the public to rely on official sources to stay informed about risks and other issues related to COVID-19 and not to consume or spread rumors and misinformation.

Yet on Friday untrue statements from hazy sources about Hawaii’s shipping lifeline reached an exceptional level of community spread largely via text and word of mouth.

At one Honolulu Starbucks store, a customer heard from an employee that Matson, Hawaii’s largest ocean cargo carrier, closed its docks Friday morning.

The Starbucks worker was passing along information he received from the manager of another Starbucks. That manager received a text from another employee that said, “Just fyi, they haven’t made an announcement, but Matson’s shutting down. They also shut the dock down last night at 10.”

A follow-up text attempted to provide a bona fide original source for the information. It said, “My friends sisters husband works at the docks.”

This message and similar ones about Matson service being disrupted aren’t true, and prompted Matson along with state and county officials to issue their own alerts to stop the rumors from spreading further.

One man, who didn’t want to give his name but battled long lines to buy toilet paper and other things at Costco in Hawaii Kai on Friday, said he heard that Matson was going to have a two-week break in its Hawaii service. His source: a friend he was surfing with at about dawn in Waikiki who works at a hotel and supposedly heard it from a co-worker who also works part time at Matson.

More than 100 shoppers lined up outside the Costco store three hours before it was scheduled to open Friday, and an hour after opening an estimated 500 or so customers had poured in and about 100 people were in a slowly moving queue to get in.

Inside the store, most customers were adding toilet paper to their carts. Some came only for that item and nothing else.

“Toilet paper this aisle, folks,” said a worker directing cart traffic to a cluster of pallets stacked with around 800 30-roll packages of the product. “Toilet paper right here. Please be sure to have a ticket.”

Costco employees handed out printed slips of paper outside the store allowing each holder to buy one package.

On Thursday the Hawaii Kai Costco ran out of toilet paper, but it got a delivery about an hour before opening Friday. Another delivery of close to 900 packages was expected later in the day.

A shopper at Sam’s Club on Keeaumoku Street engaged in some admitted panic buying said she heard from an uncle who heard from a butcher at a Safeway store that Matson is shutting down for 60 days.

Another version of the bogus rumor came in the form of this text: “Hey. My friend just informed me that her friends brother who works for Matson (the shipping company) said they are stopping shipments for 30 days to Hawaii. So I guess we need to load up on can Good’s.”

Francis Scanlan Jr., a shipping container truck driver, said he heard the buzz about a supposed shipping shutdown Thursday and knew it wasn’t true. “That’s just like one rumor,” he said. “They can’t stop shipments. That’s the only way everybody’s going to get their stuff.”

Hawaii government officials estimate that 80% of all goods consumed in the state are imported, and 98% of that comes by ship.

Tim Sakahara, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, took time at a news conference Friday to help quell the false rumors about shipping.

“All of the commercial harbors in the state are open, and all of the shipping and cargo companies continue to operate normally,” he said. “Any reports out there stating otherwise are 100% inaccurate and false. Don’t believe your uncle’s roommate’s girlfriend who happened to hear something on the other line.”

Sakahara reminded the public to get information from official sources, and said no one plans to close Hawaii harbors to cargo, precisely because it is so vital for Hawaii’s population.

“We want people to keep that in mind before they make their next trip to Costco,” he said.

Matson spokesman Keoni Wagner said employees started getting calls at work Thursday from people they know who were trying to confirm or dispel rumors they had heard.

“There’s something flying around,” Wagner said Friday morning, moments after taking a call from a woman who he said let him know that she received a text about closed docks.

Wagner said the rumors appeared to be circulating via text, and that he had not seen any of the false messages on social media.

Matson issued a statement Friday morning saying that all its operations continue uninterrupted. The company also said it is in frequent and regular communication with the U.S. Coast Guard and state Department of Transportation about commercial port regulations, and that Matson doesn’t expect any changes that would affect its service.

“Matson intends to maintain all service schedules as normal with three arrivals a week to Honolulu and twice a week calls to each neighbor island port,” the statement said.

Wagner added that if Matson customers need to bring in more goods, there is capacity on ships in service now to accommodate that. Matson also has reserve ships that it could put into service if needed.

The other major ocean cargo carrier in the state, Pasha Hawaii, did not appear to be targeted by rumors similar to ones aimed at Matson. As a precautionary measure, Pasha let customers know Friday that its Hawaii service remains uninterrupted and that no modifications are being made to its existing service routes or schedules.