TFW @WaffleHouse has a more sophisticated Hurricane monitoring operation than the Trump White House pic.twitter.com/97T2KRo8Tf
— Adam Blickstein (@AdamBlickstein) September 12, 2018
Srsly. Per the Washington Post:
… Yes, that’s right: One of the South’s most popular breakfast chains plays an important role in hurricane forecasting. Waffle Houses are known for staying open through anything, so when the company actually decides to close one of its locations due to bad weather, it means the storm is an unusually bad threat. It’s called the Waffle House Index, and FEMA monitors it. Seriously.
The @WaffleHouse Storm Center is activated and monitoring #Florence. Plan ahead and be safe. pic.twitter.com/UOBi5oZRRi
— Waffle House News (@WaffleHouseNews) September 11, 2018
Former FEMA administrator W. Craig Fugate came up with the Waffle House Index as a way to determine how an overall community was faring during a disaster.
“The Waffle House test doesn’t just tell us how quickly a business might rebound — it also tells us how the larger community is faring,” Dan Stoneking wrote on the FEMA Blog in 2011. “The sooner restaurants, grocery and corner stores, or banks can reopen, the sooner local economies will start generating revenue again — signaling a stronger recovery for that community.”
The Waffle House Index — which is, again, a real thing that our government uses — is color-coded. If Waffle Houses are open and offering a full menu, the index is green. If they’re offering a limited menu, it’s yellow. If locations in the affected area are forced to close, the index is red — and because Waffle Houses are very prepared, this is the rarest scenario…
Ah, capitalism. Putting workers’ lives at risk to be sure customers know your brand is reliable.
Arrived at Cape Fear aka Wilmington NC a little bit ago. Follow me and ?@washingtonpost? for #HurricaneFlorence updates. Paywall is down for all hurricane coverage. pic.twitter.com/IyyJP5qWXZ
— Patricia Sullivan (@psullivan1) September 11, 2018
So I’ve been wondering why SC had mandatory evacuation along the entire coast, but NC, where Florence is expected to make landfall, hasn’t. I just learned in NC it’s decided by county governments. And it appears the people in charge of some of those counties are fucking morons.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) September 12, 2018
Like I said. pic.twitter.com/Y15VkESvRK
— Schooley (@Rschooley) September 12, 2018
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Er, Rush, believing in true things is actually a good thing. We want more people to believe in the evidence of their eyes and ears over blowhard pustules on the radio.
OzarkHillbilly
What do you expect in a state that outlawed the use of climate science in zoning decisions.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I guess it’s too late to ask Rush to do a live broadcast from the Carolina coast to prove us all wrong.
Chyron HR
Hey fat fatty, Answer Me This(tm): if the hurricane turns out to be Fake News(tm) then won’t that reduce people’s trust in meteorology? And, conversely, if there actually is a hurricane coming to devastate the Carolinas, then IT’S NOT FAKE NEWS YOU DEMENTED PILE OF SHIT.
Ruckus
@Chyron HR:
Worth repeating. Especially the last part.
Zinsky
The hurricane will undoubtedly impact the poor disproportionately bad. The rich can flee, or have safe rooms or have insurance and can rebuild. The poor can only shelter in place and suffer. With money, you have options. A sociopath like Trump could never understand or acknowledge that truth.
Brachiator
Is this supposed Waffle House Index reliable? Have workers ever been harmed because they were wrong?
I don’t care about Waffle House revenues, but knowing how soon you can get goods and services to people after a storm is something you want to know.
But yeah, NC may be governed by morons. What, are they respecting individual rights by not ordering evacuations?
MagdaInBlack
Anonymous At Work
@Brachiator: The Waffle House Index is better than anything that even FEMA under Clinton and Obama (both of whom made it a priority) devised. FEMA uses it because it really is the best regional system possible (not just available).
rp
Isn’t it a good thing if they can serve their communities when every other restaurant and grocery store might be closed? Businesses, particularly restaurants, do provide something of value.
Frankensteinbeck
Science and facts started telling white Christian men that they weren’t the center of the universe decades ago. The louder it gets, the more they shout “Fuck you, Science, I do what I want!”
It’s also worth noting that North Carolina is a perfect microcosm of the nation as a whole, a basically liberal state where conservatives, seeing their rapidly approaching obsolescence, have gone absolutely batshit insane and are cheating every way they can think of to keep a lock on power and torture everyone who doesn’t agree with them.
rikyrah
Kavanaugh answers questions about gambling in written response
Rachel Maddow reports on some of the follow-up written questions submitted to Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh and newly published answers.
rikyrah
In moderation, please help.
rikyrah
Alaska Natives, a key Murkowski constituency, oppose Kavanaugh
Rachel Maddow reports on how Senator Mazie Hirono’s questioning of Brett Kavanaugh alerted the Alaska Federation of Natives to have concerns about Kavanaugh’s legal views on indigenous people, which will likely influence Senator Lisa Murkowski’s important vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
Quinerly
@Brachiator: those of us who grew up in the South and on the coast have known about the Waffle House Index for years. Very reliable. We don’t mock it. ?
Just One More Canuck
Can someone please kick Limbaugh in the nuts? We can start a GoFundMe to pay any legal bills
Brachiator
@MagdaInBlack: Ah, Trump. The Consistently Narcissistic Moron.
rikyrah
Dolt45 is tweeting that the death count in Puerto Rico is some Democratic Plot to make him look bad?
PHUCK.OUTTA.HERE!!
Quinerly
@rp: glad someone sees the point. It’s a big deal.
hilts
Donald Trump is an enemy of decency and an enemy of humanity. The day this bastard is removed from office should be treated like a national holiday.
MagdaInBlack
@rikyrah:
We dont need no damn plan, he”s doing just fine on his own =-)
Chyron HR
@rikyrah:
Save your outrage, he hasn’t even claimed that Democrats are systematically killing Puerto Ricans to make him look bad.
Yet.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I wonder how many brain dead morons are going to tough it out and die because fucking Rush Limbaugh told them there’s nothing to worry about.
Roger Moore
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
And, for obvious reasons, Limbaugh wants it the other way. I always wonder, though, what getting his listeners killed in a hurricane will do to the size of his audience.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I know it sounds awful, but it’s hard to bring myself to care.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
One thing about the toddler’s tantrum, is it shows something penetrated his little baby skull about people maybe not perceiving the federal response in Puerto Rico as ideal. Despite his insisting it was the Greatest Hurricane Response Ever.
jacy
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Well, that’s natural selection. I don’t feel sorry for them. I do feel sorry if they kill their kids or pets or first responders that are bound by duty to try and save their sorry asses.
Lee
I saw the news on Rush’s comments earlier. That fat pedo is going to get people killed.
tobie
@rikyrah: I must be blind…I can’t find where you posted the link to Rachel’s spot on the 37 Trump associates who have signed a “joint defense agreement” with Trump. Politico is reporting that one of those 37 is Manafort, whose lawyers have shared everything they know about the Special Counsel’s investigation with Trump’s lawyers. This story needs to be broadcast far and wide. Naming and shaming is our only choice until the Special Counsel speaks, if he ever does, to the American public.
chopper
so the president is a hurricane truther. makes sense.
Steve in the ATL
@hilts:
Yes, but not if he’s replaced by pence or Ryan.
sheila in nc
@Brachiator: Re evacuations: There are also differences between SC and NC about what the consequences are if you ignore an evacuation order. We all heard SC call for “mandatory evacuations” but it turns out that plenty of people just ignore it and the state goes “Meh”. In NC, I was hearing on the TV, failure to comply with a mandatory evacuation means a citation. That may factor into the risk/benefit equation at the county government level. Others in NC/SC may know more — I live in NC but not on the coast.
ruemara
Just pointing out that knowing someone is open who can feed you if you used up your supplies of worse, didn’t have any – that may be capitalism but it’s also a blessing.
And fuck Waffle House, where bigotry comes with maple syrup. Fuck Trump and his administration and fuck the NC government.
Kelly
I’m considering the idea we’d be better off without counties. Kinda like we’d be better off without the Senate.
Patricia Kayden
If you’re so dumb that you’ll listen to Limbaugh, who is a multimillionaire and is in a safe place, on how to respond to a serious weather emergency, then you deserve what you get.
Mike in NC
Trump White House’s interest in natural disasters is limited to how much money they can make off of them. Has Jared been spotted near Hilton Head yet? He’ll be selling bottled water marked up 500%.
Patricia Kayden
@chopper: Well, Trump was a Birther so there’s that. The man is allergic to the truth. It’s weird to be living in a country which is led by a constant liar.
Manyakitty
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Maybe they’ll function as a self-cleaning system, eh?
BruceFromOhio
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Oh, sure, rain on the pustule parade.
I nominate Rush to go sit on Myrtle Beach and tell us how fake it is. Although he’ll be pretty lonely, no there to listen to his farting noises.
BruceFromOhio
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Eh, all of ’em, Katie?
L85NJGT
This GOP congress has been consistent in punishing regions hit by natural disasters. NY-NJ is still playing catch up from Sandy. It’s not headline grabbing stuff, but manifests in problems like the region’s mass transit having more, and more frequent, outages and cancellations.
dr. bloor
@Lee:
Darwin nods approvingly.
Already seeing some relief in response to Flo’s downgrade to Cat 3. No one ever seems to get that it’s the water that kills, not the wind, and Flo is a monster in that respect.
L85NJGT
@BruceFromOhio:
So pretty much like any of his broadcasts?
droog
Nike Update
raven
They aren’t fishin but there are still people on the Avalon Pier!
Haroldo
@Frankensteinbeck: Galileo would like a word or two. My point here is that the current power structure dominated by white Christian men is the one feeling threatened. Way back in the day it was a sub-set of white, Christian men whose ox was getting gored by science. It’s always, always, always about money and power. Belief systems are merely a means.
Jeffro
@Chyron HR:
Seconded. It’s outrageous, but nothing new: this man has. no. bottom. So, a) remind people of that, and b) remind them that in November they have an opportunity to get rid of his GOP enablers and rein this asshole in. Seriously. I am so done with outrage when it comes to this guy, but everything he does is just more evidence that we need a Dem House (and Senate too, if we can pull that off).
Nov 2018: Our Chance To Make Them Pay.
PS to all: I was at the gym today on the elliptical thingy and watching the news…at the commercial break, there were back-to-back ads for VA-10, a DCCC ad against Barbara Comstock, and an RCCC ad against Jennifer Wexton. The RCCC ad was all about Wexton being some sort of tax-happy maniac we can’t trust. The DCCC ad was all about Comstock helping blow up the deficit to further enrich the 1%, oh and btw Comstock loves her some Trumpov and votes with him 97.5% of the time. The ad showed Comstock and Trumpov like, six times.
If that’s the choice…I like our chances!
Now then, let’s get back to MAKING THEM PAY! Be happy warriors, people!
Walker
So while there will still be a lot flooding, this storm is now looking more like Floyd and not like Hazel. Which is good. Because a Hazel after 60 years of building on the coast would be the apocalypse.
It looks like things will be uncomfortable for my mother who refused to evacuate Wilmington, but not dire. Which makes me relieved. But I fear this will embolden her for the next hurricane. These old timers will not evacuate anything less than Hazel.
Leto
I do love the comments here that are basically, “Oh you’re poor? And can’t afford to move? Fuck you!” I need to go back to the Puerto Rico threads and see if they said the same thing. Poor shaming ain’t just for the Republicans.
raven
@Walker: Our neighbor’s folks are there and n ot leaving either. The Oregon Inlet facebook page has a live video of people cutting away the end of a pier in hopes it doesn’t all go.
scav
King Cnut actually knew he didn’t command the tide.
He’d probably figured out that the same sorry whine time after time after time wasn’t a good look for him either.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jeffro: At this point, the only real way to make them pay is tumbrel rides.
raven
Oregon Inlet Idiots
Jeffro
@Villago Delenda Est: Let’s just saddle them with a refuses-to-resign Mango Menace being investigated eight ways to Sunday, and a GOP civil war heading into 2020 to boot.
Villago Delenda Est
@Leto: You’re missing the ironing here. Those comments are mocking Rethugs and their attitudes towards the poor.
Mnemosyne
@Leto:
I’m not sure where you’re getting a “fuck the poor” vibe from this thread. People are saying “fuck the people stupid enough to listen to Rush Limbaugh when he tells them the hurricane is Fake News.” That’s who Smedley and jacy are saying they don’t care about, not storm victims in general.
raven
Frying Pan Ocean Platform Webcam – Off Shore Outer Banks
Tenar Arha
@Frankensteinbeck: Thank you.
Democrats & various Independents nationwide took their eyes off the ball & the ballot, and we all got mightily screwed. Pretending that we haven’t been Charlie Brown trying to kick the football multiple times in, at minimum, the past 2 or 3 decades is a just another way to repeat that history.
Yesterday I realized there’s way to much blaming & shaming going on by way too many who should know exactly how much the NC GOP has bent, broken, & completely re-written the rules & laws in NC to keep their vise grip on power. NC didn’t hardly need Shelby County vs. Holder to prove a dedicated minority could rewrite the state laws to prevent the majority from winning.
So thank you for this. I think it’s really good to remind ourselves from time to time that other states’ suffering from misgovernance isn’t exactly their “fault.” Much like the 2016 election, where Orange Julius kept saying the quiet parts out loud, it really was a vast right wing conspiracy, taking place right out in the open.
Mike in NC
Our hostess left us alone at home while she went off to work. Not familiar with her house and trying to fix something to eat. Her diet is basically Diet Cokes and Marlboros. Owns a TV but no cable or satellite service, so 6 or 7 stations to choose from. Wife remains a nervous wreck because nobody has a clue where the hurricane is heading.
schrodingers_cat
@Frankensteinbeck: There may be some truth to this. My ex-friend who went totally bat shit insane after moving to Idaho was quite liberal when she lived in NC.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Leto: Are you talking about the comments about people who refuse to evacuate? Because I don’t see any comments I would characterize with your description.
Leto
@Villago Delenda Est: I don’t miss ironing. And those weren’t mocking Repub attitudes towards the poor.
@Mnemosyne: When TenguPhile or oatlier come in with their rape fantasies, or just general kill’em all fantasies, the people around here are pretty quick to shut them down. This is a death fantasy on fellow Americans. Nobody here will be able to tell the difference between a Limbaugh listener/non-listener when the death count comes out and we start to criticize the Trumpov repsonse. Nobody will care. They’ll be called Americans, because they are. If someone wants to write out their death fantasies for Limbaugh listeners, that’s what Facebook and Live Journal is for.
Mnemosyne
@Leto:
Also, too, I think people don’t realize that a lot of the people who claim to be riding out the storm of their own free will are lying, both to reporters and (probably) to themselves. There’s a story in a previous thread about a motel custodian who will be riding out the storm inside the motel with his wife and their 1-year-old.
His wife told reporters it’s from their own free will, but when he’ll get fired for leaving and they don’t have anywhere else to go or the money to get there, suddenly their “free will” choice looks a lot more like them putting the best spin they can on their only choice.
ruemara
@Leto: that’s a very selective reading
RSA
Actually not the case.
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article218179145.html
Mnemosyne
@Leto:
And what is it about the history of this website that makes you think that a majority of the commenters here will spend their time criticizing the affected citizens of those states instead of criticizing Trumpov’s sure to be inadequate response?
I get that you’re amped up and worried about your friends and family who are in the path of the storm, but I really think you’re misinterpreting what people are saying.
Leto
@Mnemosyne: There was also the reporting last night on NBC news about a familiar who wasn’t going to evacuate because: they couldn’t afford the gas to/from a relative who offered to shelter them, couldn’t afford the food costs while there, and also couldn’t go to the shelter because the wife has an auto-immune disorder, so couldn’t risk the chance of her not picking up something and becoming really sick.
They’re lying to themselves because they think they have a choice. Their government is failing them from a local/state/federal level. If people want to talk about, with glee because it looks like fucking glee, that they’re going to die, great; Live Journal or Facebook that shit. I don’t think a bare minimum of basic fucking human decency is too much to ask. Even when the other side isn’t willing to extend it to us, we should be better.
It’s my scheduled lunch time run. I’ll see everyone tomorrow.
CarolDuhart2
Nobody is ragging on the people who can’t go. We understand. But there are far too many who can go who are refusing to go because they believe the false prophets of the month like Limbaugh who say it isn’t real or overestimate their ability to “ride it out”. We can help the people who can’t better if those people would go-there’s only so many resources to go around.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Leto: You mean the “oh people who just lost the power in their house are just being selfish and not thinking of The Revolution because they want to buy food to eat” subtext going on? I suppose Waffle House does cynically see that as opportunity to build customer loyalty, but tell that to someone with hungry kids.
LAO
Somebody’s checking out internal polling:
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
Mmmm, you used the “g” word you naughty thing! :-)
Mnemosyne
@CarolDuhart2:
You said it better than I could. People are expressing frustration with Limbaugh listeners because it makes it harder to figure out who’s staying because they believe his bullshit and who’s staying because they don’t have any other options and they need our help.
It’s like we’re standing in line at an emergency room with people who are bleeding out or having heart attacks, but the Rush listeners are standing at the head of the line blocking everyone else’s access to emergency services because they have a hangnail that they claim is a severed artery. We need those people to get out of the way so we can get emergency assistance to those who need it.
Martin
Meanwhile, California is hosting a climate conference today. We’ve pledged to 100% renewable energy and net zero carbon impact by 2045. We’re going to have to seriously fix housing in the state for that to happen – too much commuting, not enough mass transit. And it’s not just the state government pushing it. Apple and Google have each committed to eliminating the impact of their businesses. Apple is already at 100% renewable globally and is now working to extend that to their suppliers. They’ve also set a goal of zero carbon footprint, which they’ll likely achieve in the next 5 years, and just announced a goal to eliminate mining by drastically increasing recycling. (Cue usual anti-corporate skepticism here, but Lisa Jackson the former Obama EPA head is in charge of this at Apple, and I have always taken her at her word) No, they don’t know how they’re going to achieve this yet, and they’re up front about that.
California takes in over half of the nations cleantech venture capital – about $5B annually. Those investments are triggered by energy policy. It’s investors looking at how entrenched business will struggle under the new policies and putting money behind their competitors. Essentially, its CA energy policy creating new markets and new competition. And that money isn’t going to other states because they aren’t strong enough to stand up to the Trump administration. That is, there’s no point betting against Duke Energy in a conventional energy market. But that money here creates a lot of support for the state effort. Cities are doing more, individuals are doing more, companies are doing more. And the faster our emissions drop, the faster our economy grows.
That money is going into a shitton of solar projects, including a lot of residential solar, energy storage, into monitoring and grid management, into conservation products, and $5B makes a lot of jobs. More just here in CA than the entire coal mining industry nationally.
The Moar You Know
@LAO: He does a remarkably convincing imitation of someone with a soul.
This president is proving to be a remarkable liability to his own party. I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it in my fifty years on this planet.
Mnemosyne
@LAO:
Adam was saying yesterday that Rick Scott was smart enough to start courting the Puerto Rican vote in Florida from the day refugees started arriving after Maria and he hasn’t let up. He’s even done several trips to PR for publicity/relief work.
Rick Scott may be evil, but he ain’t dumb, unfortunately.
trollhattan
@Martin:
Transportation and residential/commercial heating now seem like the biggest hurdles, while power conversion has momentum and needs to be allowed to continued (despite Trump’s overt and covert assaults against the segment).
I do get weary of folks conflating energy and power when discussing the renewables challenge.
Someday, my kid’s generation will wonder why anybody ever paid attention to the price per barrel of oil.
LAO
@The Moar You Know: Trump is a cancer on this country, (I hate scott, but as you say, knows how to play the game)
@Mnemosyne: Is he an evil genius? maybe so.
brantl
Just when I thought LimpBalls had reached peak scumbag, he doubles down on the viciously stupid.
raven
@trollhattan: So should I take my new Kia Niro back?
tobie
@LAO: @Mnemosyne: I was inspired by these comments to check out Bill Nelson’s twitter feed and noticed he’s doing bilingual tweets:
I know nothing about Florida politics on the ground. Nelson’s being painted by the media as a dud, and maybe he is, but given everything that happened in 2016 I also wonder how much the media’s take becomes a self-fulfiling narrative. Hard to fight back when the media’s decided on narrative and is sticking by it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mike in NC:
I fail to see a problem here.
Gravenstone
@MagdaInBlack: He’s got the very tiniest crumb of an idea rattling around in that big empty head of his. The idea that the majority of the deaths did not occur during the storms proper. However, those that followed were a direct result of the piss poor response leading to exposure, malnourishment and disease which would not have occurred during a competent and caring response.
So, because the majority did not die within during the storms or in the handful of days immediately following, he and his administration are somehow blameless. Sorry asshole, that’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.
Bill Arnold
On the off chance it hasn’t already been linked,
Florida Man D&D Alignment Table
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Martin:
What California has done this week re: climate disaster mitigation is a BFD that could use a little more coverage here on Balloon Juice. The world’s 5th-largest economy just mandated (by law) 100% carbon neutrality by 2045! That’s going to make a huge difference on its own, and it will encourage other places to take similar action. Thank you Martin for bringing it up.
TenguPhule
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
All Coke and Pepsis are horrible.
low-tech cyclist
One way to improve the quality of the electorate:
https://twitter.com/rbottoms/status/1039822577626177536
Brachiator
@sheila in nc:
Thanks for the info on this.
Bill Arnold
Mr. Rush Limbaugh, you are so amusingly bad at sorting through right wing conspiracy theories, granted that they are pretty much all amusingly nonsensical/inept. (Surely not deliberately so? :-)
Hint:
Hurricane Florence Risks to North Carolina Include Toxic Sludge, Lagoons of Pig Manure (Insurance Journal, 2018/09/11)
Hurricane Florence will slow down. That’s a bad thing. The storm is set to bring a mind-boggling amount of rain to the Carolinas.
Hint: seriously modeling consistently shows that global warming will increase rainfall from such storms. Consequences, bad:
Hurricane Florence Looks A Lot Like Harvey With One Key Difference: Geography
Sci-fi conspiracy hint: hurricane control is very advanced “tech”. :-)
Safety wishes for everyone in the path of this beast.
MaryRC
This seems uncalled for. The point about the Waffle House Storm Center seems to be that it’s reliable and therefore ensures that their workers’ lives aren’t at risk.
david
Yes, how horrible that there might be some refuge with ice, hot coffee, food,
or even just a clean dry place to rest for a bit for those who might be stuck there.
Nice to see the OP doesn’t cares about the emergency workers or agents or transporters
or others who might need or appreciate such a service in the midst of harsh conditions.
Ohio Mom
I know this thread is dead, it was a busy day and I’m just now catching up.
I just want to say, as someone who has patronized the Waffle House chain, that I find the contrast between their very utilitarian, no-frills, bare-bones restaurants and their ultra-sophisticated weather monitoring capabilities amusing.
They can barely fry an egg decently but they out-perform FEMA at its best.
Geoboy
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): “I wonder how many brain dead morons are going to tough it out and die because fucking Rush Limbaugh told them there’s nothing to worry about.” “All of them, Katie!” I know, too much to ask, but a boy can try.