April 24, 2024 US university protests

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• (great) Mother’s Day gifts
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• Negotiations at Columbia University unstable, organizers say
• Cal Poly Humboldt campus to remain closed through weekend as protesters occupy buildings
• Does FEMA Use Waffle House Closures to Determine How Bad a Disaster Is?
• Fox 7 photographer among those arrested at University of Texas at Austin

The popular 24/7 restaurant chain specializing in waffles and other breakfast food rarely closes it doors, often providing food and resources to first responders during natural disasters. The index is green when the local Waffle House is open and serving its full menu; yellow when it's open, but serving a limited menu; and red when it's closed. Those levels then indicate the extent to which a community has power and water. Green means the restaurant is serving a full menu, a signal that damage in an area is limited and the lights are on. Yellow means a limited menu, indicating power from a generator, at best, and low food supplies. Red means the restaurant is closed, a sign of severe damage in the area or unsafe conditions.

(great) Mother’s Day gifts

However, the restaurant really has become shorthand at the highest levels of the American government for predicting how bad a disaster will be, or how much damage a disaster has done to a community. The "Waffle House Index," first coined by Federal Emergency Management Agency Director W. Craig Fugate, is based on the extent of operations and service at the restaurant following a storm and indicates how prepared a business is in case of a natural disaster. For FEMA, the ability to order a plate of smothered and covered hash browns is an important analytic. If a Waffle House is having trouble getting stock, then transportation has been interrupted. If the menu is limited, then it’s possible they have some utilities but not others. If its locations have locked their doors, inclement weather has taken over.

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In March 2020, the Waffle House Index went red as restaurants around the U.S. closed during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. Waffle House closed 21 locations across the state from Naples along the Gulf of Mexico north some 120 miles to Bradenton in Manatee County as a precaution before closing an additional 14 stores. The Waffle House Index is considered accurate in part because it isn’t used to measure specifics but rather to gauge a storm’s impact on a community. What helps its accuracy here is the volume of stores — there are hundreds scattered across the Southeast.

Negotiations at Columbia University unstable, organizers say

One video posted on social media shows a fight between multiple people, one appearing to be one of the victims. While it’s not clear what the fight was about, we know gunshots rang out after. The university closed its campus Wednesday evening as LAPD began arresting demonstrators. Waffle House has also garnered a reputation for being a hotbed of absolute insanity. "There are two signs you need to leave now. Waffle House is closed, and (Jim) Cantore shows up," one X user posted on the social media platform, formerly known as Twitter. The index has been used to predict how severely weather will affect an area's accessibility to food, water and essential resources.

“I looked at not only the individual who shot the video but looking at the people in there, those employees, and how they seemed to just be so devastated, overwhelmed,” Dr. James Camm One Community One Voice said. The university "supports free speech through open dialogue that is respectful and constructive," the officials said. "The university is a private campus and the group had been violating some of their orders. It was a trespass at that point and we assisted with the arrests," Los Angeles Police Captain Kelly Muniz said during a briefing. No matter the reason, Waffle House has developed a cult following. 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.

On top of that, the then newly-reorganized agency's widely-criticized, delayed response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 left many with the impression FEMA was a bumbling (and at worst, carelessly lethal) example of federal inefficiency. In a interview with NBC News on Thursday, Fugate acknowledged that the index "doesn't tell you everything." But he says restaurants labeled red are still a "pretty good gauge" of which areas of a community are impacted the most and need critical attention first. When he was leaving the restaurant, Fugate and his team noticed several cars appeared to be parked at the Starbucks about a block away. But when they got closer, they realized the people weren't there for the coffee.

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Waffle House has over 2,000 locations in the U.S., including more than 100 in Florida. FEMA does pay attention to their closures, as it helps them indicate how many people have evacuated from a town. That knowledge helps FEMA decide what they need to do after the storm.

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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. Waffle House restaurants have a reputation for staying open during extreme weather — and for reopening quickly after being forced to close due to tornadoes and hurricanes. If you've lived in Florida for a while, you've probably heard of the "Waffle House Index," which is an informal metric used by emergency officials to measure the severity of a storm. "The Waffle House test just doesn't tell us how quickly a business might rebound — it also tells how the larger community is faring," said a FEMA blog post from 2011, when Craig Fugate was administrator under former president Obama.

FRESH FROM HELL, HILARITY I’m usually up round about the 8 o’clock hour. It’s a longstanding daddy-daughter tradition, always from the smoothie/juice spot right here on my block, Fresh From Hell. If I worked late and am feeling super lazy, I might have it delivered. Other times, I walk down the block in my pajama pants and pick it up. She gets a fresh and fruity açaí bowl; I get a green smoothie with a bunch of stuff in it — flax seeds, matcha protein, ginger, blueberries. The new restaurant is over 4500 square feet with parking, a feat that is hard to come by in this area.

In Hurricane Katrina — when they closed 107 locations in Mississippi and on the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain — roads were so bad they stashed supplies in a refrigerated semi-trailer with armed guards, and fuel so scarce they brought in their own tank trucks. When Katrina struck in 2005, Twitter had not yet launched; now Bruner uses it not just to alert customers to closings, but to crowdsource whether roads are open and where the power is on. Waffle House announced Oct. 6 that it was pre-emptively closing some restaurants on a 90-mile stretch of Interstate 95 between Fort Pierce and Titusville in Florida.

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If a store like a Home Depot or a Lowe’s or your local hardware store can open, that means people can get the supplies they need in order to rebuild, to clean up the muck and progress along the path to recovery. Businesses in communities are often some of the biggest drivers of recovery. If people can go back to work, they can return to at least one piece of a normal life—and that little piece of normalcy can make a big difference. DAD HAT As of late we’ve been walking to the piers, two blocks away. If it’s raining, she likes to jump in the puddles, much to the chagrin of me in my father hat. When we get back home late morning, we do what I like to think of as the real breakfast, which is delivery from Galaxy Diner.

What Would Waffle House Do in an Emergency? - FacilitiesNet

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Posted: Sun, 03 Mar 2024 13:42:32 GMT [source]

During Hurricane Irene, Waffle House lost power to 22 restaurants in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. By Wednesday evening, all but one in hard-hit coastal Virginia were back in business. Waffle House Inc. has 1,600 restaurants stretching from the mid-Atlantic to Florida and across the Gulf Coast, leaving it particularly vulnerable to hurricanes. Other businesses, of course, strive to reopen as quickly as possible after disasters.