Pizza Hut manager threatens to discipline workers who evacuate too early for Hurricane Irma

A Florida Pizza Hut manager told employees in a memo they'd face discipline for evacuating from Hurricane Irma too early and missing shifts because of it.

The memo — posted in a Jacksonville franchise, the Washington Post said — told evacuating workers they "will have a 24-hour period before the storm 'grace period' to not be scheduled. You cannot evacuate Friday for a Tuesday storm event!" The memo added that "failure to show for these shifts, regardless of reason, will be considered a no call/no show and documentation will be issued."

The memo also said that all evacuating employees must return within 72 hours.

Pizza Hut posted a statement on its blog saying, “We absolutely do not have a policy that dictates when team members can leave or return from a disaster, and the manager who posted this letter did not follow company guidelines. We can also confirm that the local franchise operator has addressed this situation with the manager involved.”

Jacksonville was hit hard by Hurricane Irma. NBC News reported Monday that the city is "being swallowed by water, with heavy rain and a record storm surge turning streets into churning rivers and wind-whipped waves crashing through windows."

The city government issued a flash flood emergency Monday morning, told citizens to stay inside and asked them to put white flags outside their homes to signal for help, the network added. Storm surge flooding in downtown Jacksonville rose past a record set during Hurricane Dora in 1965 by at least 1 foot, CBS News reported, citing the National Weather Service.

"It's bad now," NWS meteorologist Angie Enyedi said during a Monday morning briefing, NBC News added. "It's going to continue to get worse."

Brighter spots in town

Amid the devastation, Jacksonville residents young and old worked together to move an oak tree that crashed across a main road, the A1A, the Florida Times-Union reported.

At first they tried sawing through the tree without much success, but as they persisted more people showed up to help, the paper said, adding that chains were tethered around the oak.

“This is really something,” Sandi Cook — who helped direct traffic — told the Times-Union, noting that mostly strangers helped each other remove the tree from the street.