FEMA Director Says Criticism Of Agency Is Misinformation
FEMA was heavily criticized for its disaster relief efforts being slow and political, while spending money on illegals. Those criticisms turned out to be accurate.FEMA was heavily criticized for its disaster relief efforts being slow and political, while spending money on illegals. Those criticisms turned out to be accurate.Disaster with a side of bacon: The Waffle House index
Ask any southerner: Waffle House doesn’t close. It’s open 24/7, even on holidays — in fact, Christmas is its busiest day of the year. Its never-ending breakfast menu is a staple of American life.
So when Waffle House does close — when the bright yellow lights dim and the doors lock — you know things have gotten serious.
When a storm passes and you smell those hash browns frying again, it’s not just a diner reopening — it’s a sign that things are getting better.
Anyone who’s spent time at Waffle House knows it’s a bare-bones operation — simple booths, an open kitchen, and a no-frills menu from which you can even order a T-bone steak.
Waffle House restaurants are often located along highways in cities and small towns. They have a bit of a reputation for rowdiness, thanks to videos of late-night altercations surfacing online.
Yet the chain also has another, more surprising claim to fame: It's uniquely well prepared for disasters.
Waffle House headquarters has a storm center and an entire operations and readiness team. Their extensive contingency plans include emergency response teams and pre-stocked supplies, making their closure or limited operation an indicator of something truly serious.
Scattered showers
The Waffle House Index is a term coined by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to measure disaster severity based on the operational status of Waffle House restaurants. It’s kind of similar to the Big Mac Index, which correlates the exchange rate of a country to the local cost of a Big Mac.
Waffle House has more than 1,900 locations nationwide. Yet they all share a devotion to their surrounding community.
If a serious hurricane spirals out of the Atlantic Ocean, it’s most likely going to be faced with dozens of Waffle Houses — in 2022, Hurricane Ian knocked out at least 35 locations. FEMA noticed that these diners are so resilient that their status during hurricanes correlates with the impact of the disaster. It’s a quirky yet effective metric that exemplifies the odd but vital relationship between Waffle House and FEMA.
The Index has three levels:
- Green: Waffle House is fully operational with a complete menu. This indicates minimal damage.
- Yellow: The restaurant is open but serving a limited menu. Power outages or supply issues likely impacted operations.
- Red: Waffle House is closed. This is a serious situation, as these diners rarely shut down.
Seeing 'red'
The Waffle House Index first gained traction after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Waffle House closures closely followed the storm’s path, with restaurants shutting down in the hardest-hit areas.
The correlation became apparent — when Waffle House closes, FEMA knows things are bad.
The “red” status was invoked across the Carolinas during Hurricane Florence (2018), as many locations shut down completely due to severe flooding and infrastructure damage
In 2021, Waffle House closures in Texas gave FEMA a critical indicator of the severity of the power grid failure and infrastructure breakdown across the state
And most recently, during Hurricane Helene, Waffle Houses across Florida’s Big Bend and inland areas hit "red" as the storm devastated the region, signaling the need for urgent relief efforts.
American water
I won’t dwell on the history and logistics of the Waffle House Index. Every time there’s a major hurricane, the news media is flooded with stories about it.
Instead, let’s consider the deeply American cohesion of a federal agency and a chain breakfast joint.
The dynamic is familiar: private and public sectors, industry and state, a corporation working alongside a government agency. In the wake of Helene and FEMA’s disastrous response, snarky memes flooded social media, insisting that Waffle House outperforms FEMA.
This is silly. Waffle House is not more prepared and equipped than FEMA. But that’s also the wrong comparison to make. The relationship is closer to the dynamic between local and federal. Waffle House is more American because it’s so personal and real. FEMA is more American in its budget, structure, and enormity. America is a beast with the wild heart of a high school dropout.
A symbol of recovery
Waffle House’s ability to remain open during disasters is due to its robust disaster preparedness. Each location has a crisis management plan, pre-stocked supplies, and emergency teams on standby. This level of preparation sets Waffle House apart as a symbol of community resilience during crises.
The faster a Waffle House reopens, the more resilient the area is. When a storm passes and you smell those hash browns frying again, it’s not just a diner reopening — it’s a sign that things are getting better.
After a few days of eating MREs, Waffle House is practically gourmet — warm food, shared with lines of fellow survivors.
In America, victory over nature is often celebrated with a greasy plate of eggs and hash browns. What could be more fitting?
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Nearly all of the suspects arrested in Florida for looting in the aftermath of Hurricanes Helene and Milton were illegal immigrants, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office announced over the weekend.
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri stated, "Between October 2nd and October 23rd, just in the last 21 days, we've arrested 45 people in the Pinellas beach communities on 68 different charges, including armed robbery, burglary, loitering and prowling, grand theft, vandalism, and trespass."
'Tough times for everybody.'
"Of the 45 burglars and thieves that we've arrested, only two were from Pinellas County," Gualtieri continued. "The rest came here from out of the area to steal from our residents and businesses."
Gualtieri noted that 41 of the 45 arrested individuals were illegal aliens from Mexico, Cuba, Columbia, Honduras, Venezuela, and other countries.
The sheriff's office had contact with another 196 individuals who were caught in the beach neighborhoods under suspicious circumstances and questioned by law enforcement but ultimately released due to lack of probable cause. Of those individuals, 163 were illegal aliens, the department stated.
"They're going into people's homes, they're taking stuff, they're rummaging through their things," Gualtieri explained. "This is the epitome of people trying to exploit others when they're down and when they're out, and they're trying to rebuild, and they've got nothing."
Bill Karns, the owner of Saltwater Hippie Beach Bar, told WTSP that he witnessed people trying to loot local businesses, including his own. He noted that the suspects were caught.
"Tough times for everybody, but we can't have people coming in and taking advantage of our residents," Karns stated.
Another 58 people were charged with scamming Florida hurricane victims out of $250 million for repairs that they never performed. The suspects offered to complete over 75 projects, including plumbing, roofing, and electrical work.
"People offering to do work on their property, but, in some cases, have no intention of doing the work. In other cases, are unqualified to do the work and, in all of these cases, are unlicensed to do the work," Gualtieri said.
Nearly all of the arrested individuals had extensive criminal records, Gualtieri stated.
An additional 80 officers were deployed to the hurricane-impacted areas.
"A lot of these people were in the area to take others' properties, and our efforts prevented additional crimes from occurring," Gualtieri said. "As the Pinellas beaches recover, we're gonna continue these patrols and arrest everyone we can who is stealing from the vulnerable of two back-to-back storms that have devastated our community."
Many of the businesses in Madeira Beach remain closed, and some are still boarded up following the hurricanes, WTVT reported.
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‘It is hurricane season’: DeSantis schools reporter who tries to blame Hurricane Milton tornadoes on global warming
During a Thursday press briefing, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) came prepared with the facts on hurricane history, schooling a reporter who tried to blame tornadoes caused by Hurricane Milton on global warming.
Two hurricanes and dozens of tornadoes have hit Florida in the last couple of weeks.
'People should put this in perspective.'
When asked by a reporter whether he thinks the increase in tornadoes could be linked to climate change, DeSantis responded, “I think you can go back and find tornadoes for all of human history for sure.”
When Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida late Wednesday, it had a barometric pressure of roughly 950 millibars, the governor stated.
“I think, if you go back to 1851, there’s probably been 27 hurricanes that have had lower [barometric pressure] — so the lower the barometric pressure, the stronger it is,” he continued. “I think there have been about 27 hurricanes that have had lower barometric pressure on landfall than Milton did, and of those, 17 occurred, I think, prior to 1960.”
The most powerful hurricane to hit Florida since the 1850s was the Labor Day Hurricane in the 1930s, which had a barometric pressure of 892 millibars, according to DeSantis.
“It totally wiped out the Keys. We’ve never seen anything like it, and that remains head and shoulders above any powerful hurricane that we’ve ever had in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said.
He noted that the state’s most deadly storm was the Okeechobee hurricane in 1928, which killed more than 4,000 people.
DeSantis added that Hurricane Ian, which killed 149 people in Florida two years ago, “wasn’t even close to that.”
“I just think people should put this in perspective. They try to take different things that happen with tropical weather and act like it’s something; there’s nothing new under the sun. This is something that the state has dealt with for its entire history, and it’s something that we'll continue to deal with,” he said.
DeSantis argued that what has changed is Florida’s population.
“We’ve got 23 million people. A storm that hits is likely to hit more people and property than it would have a hundred years ago. And so the potential for that damage has grown,” he continued, adding that the state’s prevention ability has also significantly improved.
“We never did the pre-staging of power assets until I became governor. Now, people, like, expect that, but that wasn’t what was done in the past. That’s why people would be out with power for three weeks when we’d have hurricanes,” DeSantis stated. “Now we have to pay to get these guys to come in, but my view is, the quicker you get everyone hooked up, the better off the economy is going to be anyway.”
Another reporter asked DeSantis if he would denounce “misinformation” about “some entity controlling the weather.”
The governor replied, “This is on both sides. Some people think government can do this, then others think it’s all because of fossil fuels.”
“There’s precedent for all of this in history,” he said. “It is hurricane season. You are going to have tropical weather.”
“These are natural occurrences,” DeSantis added.
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