In late September, Hurricane Helene struck northwest Florida as a Category 4 storm, causing widespread destruction there and in parts of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Many areas experienced catastrophic flooding and damage to homes and businesses. Two weeks later, Hurricane Milton hit Florida as a Category 3, bringing tornadoes and severe flooding.

Emergency response team

Our emergency response team (ERT) consists of leaders from different functional areas. The team gathers to plan for pending storms and organizes response efforts before and after to ensure continued service to impacted customers and communities. The team continually monitors weather events and coordinates communications across the company to help support and equip our associates to prepare for and recover from storms.

Publix Emergency InfoLine

The Publix Emergency InfoLine provides information on store and office building hours of operation before and after storms. Between Helene and Milton, the phone line received more than 13,000 calls from associates seeking information about the status of their workplaces.

By the numbers

• Just 24 hours after each storm, only 7 stores remained closed, and within 72 hours, all affected stores reopened.
• In response to the critical needs of our communities, we were able to ship 4.1 million gallons of water.
• In just one day (Oct. 13), we shipped over 375,000 gallons of milk — double what we ship in a typical day.