Many people think that the official motto of US Postal Service begins “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night,” and testifies to the dauntless of mailmen. In fact, the Postal Service has no motto – meaning the statement of purpose is free for others to use as their own. HuffPost Food would like to suggest an unlikely taker: Waffle House.

According to the Wall Street Journal’s Valerie Bauerline, the 62-year-old Southern food chain has a longstanding reputation for staying open during natural disasters. And if a storm is too intense to stay open straight through the worst of it, Waffle House has especially strong protocols for getting back online quickly. Bauerline explains:

Its hurricane playbook explains how to reopen a restaurant and what to serve if there is gas but no electricity, or a generator but no ice. An important element is limiting the menu so the company’s supply chain can focus on keeping certain items stocked and chilled or frozen.

Waffle House’s tenacity and preparedness are so watertight that FEMA Director Craig Fugate has joked that he watches a “Waffle House Index” of disaster magnitude. He can tell how bad a disaster’s been by how much of its menu Waffle House is serving. EHS Today specifies the exact parameters of the index, which gained credence when Washington University Business professor Panos Kouvelis conducted a study on the subject:

For example, if a Waffle House store is open and offering a full menu, the index is green. If it is open but serving from a limited menu, it’s yellow. When the location has been forced to close, the index is red. Because Waffle House is well prepared for disasters, Kouvelis said, it’s rare for the index to hit red. For example, the Joplin, Mo., Waffle House survived the tornado and remained open.

As FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate explained to the Wall Street Journal, “If you get there and the Waffle House is closed? That’s really bad. That’s where you go to work.”

The only other chains with comparable disaster management are Wal Mart, Lowe’s and the Home Depot — none of which serve pork chops or hash browns topped with chili.

From Huffington Post

Today and Tomorrow’s Forecast
Wednesday, Aug 31: 110 AQI Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups Particle Pollution (2.5 microns)
Thursday, Sep 1: 90 AQI Moderate Particle Pollution (2.5 microns)

Today, smoke from the marsh fire will enhance ozone and particle production in the New Orleans area. In addition, sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-90s will support the formation of ozone. These conditions, combined with carryover from yesterday, will lead to Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups AQI levels for particles. Tomorrow and Friday, a low-pressure system will move into southern Louisiana from the south, producing mostly cloudy skies and moderate easterly winds. These weather conditions will limit ozone formation and disperse pollutants. However, continued smoky conditions, warm temperatures, and high pollutant carryover will lead to mid to high-Moderate AQI levels on both days.

DEQ is forecasting a PM2.5 Action Day for the New Orleans metropolitan area. Smoke from a burning marsh fire near I-10 and I-510 will cause poor air quality in the New Orleans metropolitan area. This Action Day may be extended depending on the fire and weather conditions.

The Air Quality Index indicates that particles will be at the orange level, which is unhealthy for sensitive groups. Increasing particle levels may cause unhealthy air quality during afternoon hours. Active children and adults, the elderly and people with respiratory diseases, such as asthma, should avoid prolonged outdoor activities and exertion.

from katc

Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin appeared on the CBS Early Show Friday morning to offer his advice to those preparing for Hurricane Irene. In the interview conducted by Chris Wragge, he referred several times to his experiences during Hurricane Katrina to make his points.

After saying “95 to 96 percent” of citizens evacuated New Orleans before the storm, he advised those who live in low-lying areas to take the threat seriously. He said riding out the storm was “one of the biggest mistakes our citizens made.”

Continue reading and watch video at TP

Forecasters don’t expect Hurricane Irene to make landfall until Saturday. But for nearly a week now, big-box retailers like Walmart and Home Depot have been getting ready.

They’ve deployed hundreds of trucks carrying everything from plywood to Pop-Tarts to stores in the storm’s path. It’s all possible because these retailers have turned hurricane preparation into a science — one that government emergency agencies have begun to embrace.

At Home Depot’s Hurricane Command Center in Atlanta, for example, about 100 associates have been trying to anticipate how Irene will affect its East Coast stores from the Carolinas to New York.

At times like this, the Command Center looks much like NASA Mission Control during a shuttle launch, says Russ Householder, the company’s emergency-response captain.

“We’ve got all the key news agencies on the big screens up front,” he says. “We’re also monitoring our store sales so we can better be in tune to what’s happening in our stores, and we’re also connected live one-on-one with district managers in the impacted areas.”

Preparing For Emergencies

Those district managers have been focusing on stocking a short list of items, Householder says, including generators, chain saws, water and tarps.

Householder says those supplies are flowing to stores because of a process that began months ago, at the beginning of hurricane season.

“We take storm product, both pre- and post-strike product, we stage those in containers and we have them in our distribution centers, really ready for a driver to pull up and pick up and take them to our stores,” he says.

The system got a stress test a few days ago when Irene struck Puerto Rico, causing widespread power outages. Householder says Home Depot stores switched to emergency generators.

“All stores opened up the day after the storm came through,” he says. “We opened up on time and we were there, ready and waiting for our customers.”

Continue at NPR