Upon taking office, President Trump pushed to downsize the agency and shift the responsibility of disaster response toward states. Under his former homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, Mr. Trump moved to slash the agency\u2019s funding and staff.<\/p>\n
Waffle House has, for decades, played a small role in the agency\u2019s work. The restaurant chain sticks to its 24-hour operating schedule in all but the most dire of circumstances, dishing up hash browns and omelets. That policy gave rise within FEMA to a Waffle House index, which helps gauge storm damage by the operating status of the local Waffle House. If a restaurant in the path of a storm isn\u2019t serving, it\u2019s time to send the cavalry.<\/p>\n
At the Waffle Houses of Rome this week, Mr. Phillips\u2019s assertion of supernatural travel was met with skepticism. At the branch on U.S. Route 411, close to a Quality Inn and a pest control company, Estelle Mandeville, 27, was finishing up breakfast. Ms. Mandeville, a North Carolinian who was traveling for work, described herself as \u201cuncomfortably atheist,\u201d and noted that she, personally, had come to Rome in a 2018 Kia Niro.<\/p>\n
Grant Sikes, 20, a student at nearby Berry College who hopes to attend an Episcopal seminary one day, said that divine power, from his experience, expressed itself in more subtle ways. He said he felt the presence of God at that moment, as he wrapped up a late, mellow breakfast with his grandfather, Larry Kellogg, 83.<\/p>\n
Austin Spears, 29, a land surveyor, also found Mr. Phillips\u2019s story to be dubious. But he also acknowledged that all human lives are studded with little mysteries.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can say I\u2019ve been drunk and ended up in a Waffle House,\u201d Mr. Spears said. \u201cDon\u2019t know how I got there. But I was there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chris Hippensteel and Scott Dance contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Upon taking office, President Trump pushed to downsize the agency and shift the responsibility of disaster response toward…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6065,6069,6064,6063,6062,6066,6061,2456,27,6068,1163,3914,6067],"class_list":{"0":"post-8284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rome","8":"tag-conspiracy-theories","9":"tag-donald-j","10":"tag-federal-aid-us","11":"tag-federal-emergency-management-agency","12":"tag-gregg-1960","13":"tag-occult-sciences","14":"tag-phillips","15":"tag-restaurants","16":"tag-rome","17":"tag-rome-ga","18":"tag-trump","19":"tag-united-states-politics-and-government","20":"tag-waffle-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}