Waffle House Closes 35 Locations in Florida amid Hurricane Ian

Table Of Content

• September 28, 2022 Hurricane Ian updates
• The Waffle House Index: These Florida locations are still closed because of Hurricane Ian
• Manatee County official gets visibly emotional as he warns residents of Hurricane Ian's severity
• Storm Team 4 Weather Alert
• How to get help in Central Florida after Hurricane Ian
• Local News

Across its more than 2,100 restaurants in 25 states, Waffle House typically sees annual revenues exceeding $1.3 billion. Beloved for its delicious, cheap food and healthy doses of complete chaos, Waffle House holds a unique place in the hearts (and stomachs) of many Americans. Waffle House's typical adherence to an open-in-rain-or-shine mantra is often one that even the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) unofficially follows as an indicator of how threatening a storm is. While all other Waffle House locations are open in Florida, many are working on a limited menu.

September 28, 2022 Hurricane Ian updates

The Waffle House Catering Team can Scatter, Smother & Cover® your school function, birthday party, wedding, corporate gathering or any other event you can dream up! We have a variety of options available for you to get a real Waffle House Experience! These could include food items delivered directly to you; on-site food stations that serve waffles, hashbrowns and/or other delicious items; or even a visit by the Waffle House food truck (Food Truck only serves the greater Atlanta area).

The Waffle House Index: These Florida locations are still closed because of Hurricane Ian

74-year-old man crashes car into Waffle House in Navarre - WEAR

74-year-old man crashes car into Waffle House in Navarre.

Posted: Wed, 17 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Frank Cerabino is a news columnist with The Palm Beach Post, part of the Gannett Newspapers chain. When the song titles of this new album were released in February, I wrote a column wondering if the song “Florida!!! To get off the list, Martinez said, the companies must prove fewer work-related injuries and provide firsthand accounts from employees about any new safety- or health-related improvements. “We release the Dirty Dozen each year to shine a light on what’s going wrong in U.S. workplaces — and to support workers who are joining together to make it right,” Martinez said in a news release.

Manatee County official gets visibly emotional as he warns residents of Hurricane Ian's severity

Ask anyone who lives in one of the 25 states in the US home to the roadside breakfast mecca, and it’s likely they’ve heard of the Waffle House Index. It’s the unofficial measure thought up by a former FEMA official to evaluate how severely a storm hit an area. The chain already announced Tuesday that it had closed 11 locations in mandatory evacuation zones in south Florida. Waffle House has closed 21 of its locations in Florida that are in mandatory evacuation zones as of 11 a.m. ET Wednesday, according to Njeri Boss, the chain's vice president of public relations.

A national occupational safety organization listed Mississippi's Mar-Jac Poultry as one of the most dangerous places in the U.S. to work, following the 2023 death of 16-year-old Duvan Perez. Waffle House has also garnered a reputation for being a hotbed of absolute insanity. "We currently have approximately 35 restaurants closed, but that number will fluctuate quite a bit," Njeri Boss, vice president of public relations at Waffle House, Inc. told PEOPLE.

The restaurant chain’s preparedness for natural disasters, which allows its locations to stay open throughout weather crises or open shortly after, has earned it a storm distinction with FEMA. Hurricane Ian made landfall near Cayo Costa, Florida, as a catastrophic Category 4 storm, with its 150 mph winds snapping apart trees, ripping homes to shreds and tearing down power lines across the coastline. The 24-hour breakfast chain temporarily closed dozens of locations along the Gulf Coast from Bradenton to Naples, and more restaurants are expected to be affected. The storm will cause "catastrophic storm surge, winds and flooding" in the areas in its path soon, it added.

The term was coined by former FEMA administrator Craig Fugate following the Joplin tornado in May 2011. The storm, which caused over $2.8 billion in damage and 158 casualties, was not enough to close down either of the Waffle House locations in Joplin. The breakfast chain remained open throughout the storm, with a prepared limited menu that allowed it to serve food even during power outages. This could expose areas to hurricane-force winds for eight hours or more, and tropical-storm-force winds for well over 24 hours. The teen's death was just the tip of the iceberg for the Hattiesburg company, which has had eight OSHA-documented safety complaints in the last five years, including three fatalities. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Waffle House is famed for more than just its all-day breakfast.

Waffle House temporarily closes multiple Florida locations due to Hurricane Ian - Fox28 Savannah

Waffle House temporarily closes multiple Florida locations due to Hurricane Ian.

Posted: Sat, 27 Apr 2024 14:48:45 GMT [source]

American Airlines, which operates about 250 daily departures out of Miami — its fourth largest hub — has cancelled 583 flights, including mainline and regional service. Another 1,600 flights have already been canceled for Thursday, a two-day total topping 3,600 flights. Airlines are canceling flights in order to ensure their aircraft and crews are in safe locations and customers aren’t stranded as Ian approaches Florida. As Hurricane Ian is set to make landfall in Florida, more than 2,000 US flights have now been canceled Wednesday, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware.

"Extremely dangerous eyewall of Ian moving onshore," National Hurricane Center says

Closures are a tell-tale sign of Hurricane Ian's severity, as Waffle House often provides resources to emergency officials and community members during extreme weather, typically braving threatening storms. In January 2021, the chain's food truck was handing out meals in Fultondale, Alabama after a tornado struck the city; additionally, locations were open during a winter storm in Monroe, Louisiana in February 2021, per The Weather Channel. Headquartered in Norcross, GA, Waffle House restaurants have been serving Good Food Fast® since 1955. Today the Waffle House system operates more than 1,900 restaurants in 25 states and is the world's leading server of waffles, t-bone steaks, hashbrowns, cheese 'n eggs, country ham, pork chops and grits. In fact, a measurement tool called the Waffle House Index can be used to analyze a storm’s severity and the effect it can have on communities. Its classifications of green, yellow, and red indicate how severe a storm is based on how well Waffle House can operate during it.

Hurricane Ian underwent another bout of rapid Intensification in the past 24 hours, with its top-end winds increasing by 40 mph (from 115 to 155 mph) in about 16 hours. Airports in Orlando, Miami and Tampa are seeing the greatest number of cancellations. Tampa International airport is closed, and Orlando International is closed to all but emergency flights.

The storm is expected to slow down after landfall, moving at only 6 to 7 mph and taking more than 24 hours to move across Florida. The song has the obligatory hurricane reference, which serves as yet another opportunity for morose self-reflection. Mar-Jac, and Onin Staffing, the company Mar-Jac officials said hired Perez, have denied any culpability in the teen's death. Perez's mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit in February, accusing the chicken processing plant and others of knowingly allowing the teen to work there and failing to protect his life by following safety procedures. The teen, an indigenous Mayan from Guatemala, was killed July 14, 2023, while sanitizing the deboning area of the plant.

"We are in the process of reopening restaurants, depending on power availability, safety and staffing, among other issues." Water can recede when strong winds on the left side of the center of the storm push water out away from shore, according to CNN meteorologist Judson Jones. Tropical-storm-force winds spread also across more than 320 miles, a distance that would reach from Washington, DC, to Cleveland, Ohio. Hurricane Charley, also a Category 4, hit the same area in 2004 and brought a max of 6 to 7 feet of storm surge.

National COSH announced its annual Dirty Dozen report during Workers' Memorial Week, which ended Saturday. A Zoom presentation Thursday featured workplace safety experts and Dirty Dozen employees who were harmed at their workplaces. Read on to discover which states have the most Waffle Houses, and see how your home state compares to others across the country.

The Waffle House spokesperson said that’s because of customer demand and also limited supplies due to the storm. A Waffle House spokesperson told News 6 that 40 Waffle Houses were closed at the height of Hurricane Ian, but they’ve been working to get restaurants back open quickly. This is an unofficial scale, not something FEMA actually uses to officially measure the severity of storm damage to an area, but it is a quick way to break information down. Hurricanes undergoing rapid intensification in the 24 hours before landfall have been increasingly common in recent years. If Hurricane Ian hits at its current intensity or higher, it will be the strongest storm to ever make landfall on the west coast of the Florida Peninsula on record.