OK, I'll bite ^_^ (although I don't think I've ever done so at a Waffle House).
FEMA et. al. really need to know the facts on the ground.
People lie. Intentionally (in Katrina, a whole lot of people a short distance away from the National Guard and Coast Guard's constant stream of helicopters depositing the rescued at the stadium ... no way you're going to convince me they didn't notice the monster Chinooks), unintentionally because of poor or incomplete information (ever notice how you can't believe anything in early news reports of this sort?), etc.
But Waffle House has a system, that is part of what keeps them in business, and that system turns out not to lie. The limited menu is fascinating: limited electricity, i.e. running off generators, no waffles for you!
I suspect even Wal-Mart, which has a serious disaster system, also being in disaster prone areas including the southeast, can't match that early on, because they're responding as much to anticipated need as real needs, although maybe they can data mine purchases ... assuming the data link to HQ is still up (don't know if they have a satellite backup).
And they can always reallocate a lot of surplus stuff they didn't turn out to need. Or you just don't worry, in the days after this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado there was a great surplus of bottled water in the disaster area, increasing stacks and stacks of it everywhere. Figuring out how much was rushed to the area would give you essentially no useful, or at least new data.
FEMA et. al. really need to know the facts on the ground.
People lie. Intentionally (in Katrina, a whole lot of people a short distance away from the National Guard and Coast Guard's constant stream of helicopters depositing the rescued at the stadium ... no way you're going to convince me they didn't notice the monster Chinooks), unintentionally because of poor or incomplete information (ever notice how you can't believe anything in early news reports of this sort?), etc.
But Waffle House has a system, that is part of what keeps them in business, and that system turns out not to lie. The limited menu is fascinating: limited electricity, i.e. running off generators, no waffles for you!
I suspect even Wal-Mart, which has a serious disaster system, also being in disaster prone areas including the southeast, can't match that early on, because they're responding as much to anticipated need as real needs, although maybe they can data mine purchases ... assuming the data link to HQ is still up (don't know if they have a satellite backup).
And they can always reallocate a lot of surplus stuff they didn't turn out to need. Or you just don't worry, in the days after this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado there was a great surplus of bottled water in the disaster area, increasing stacks and stacks of it everywhere. Figuring out how much was rushed to the area would give you essentially no useful, or at least new data.