Chick-Fil-A Hands Out Over 1,000 Sandwiches to Stranded Alabama Drivers
An Alabama Chick-fil-A owner responded to Tuesday's snowstorm by handing out sandwiches to stranded drivers.
After fast food chain owner Mark Meadows got stuck in traffic while delivering food to a customer, he decided that his time was better spent handing out dinner to other stranded drivers.
"I had a delivery to make. I had this lady who said she still wanted her boxed meal delivered. So I got on 280 and two hours later I was still not to where I needed to be," Meadows told KCTV.
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"That's when I started handing out box meals to people on 280," he added.
Although the restaurant had closed earlier in anticipation of the storm, the owner was able to bring most of the team back and reopen the kitchen.
"They started preparing sandwiches and we went out onto 280 and just stared passing 'em out to people," Meadows said.
The restaurant gave away dozens of meals to individuals who were stuck in their cars or had ditched them for shelter.
"We have given away over a 1,000 Chick-fil-A biscuits this morning to people who were stranded or in hotels or couldn't get anywhere," Meadows said.
"There were people from Home Depot handing out water when I was handing out boxes. There were people out in the middle of 280 pushing cars and trying to get people on their way. This is something that it wasn't just me at all, there were a lot of people helping out each other out here. And they still are," he added.
The restaurant owner said that many people were touched by Chick-fil-A's actions.
"Tremendous, tremendous response from people almost in tears and they were very glad that we did what we did," Meadows said.
Many took to Twitter to praise the restaurant for its help.
"Proud of Mark Meadows and @ChickfilA for serving my city. I've gotta say... not surprised at all. In a good way," tweeted Taylor Borders.
"So proud of 280 Chic-fil-a owner Mark Meadows for always serving people!" Layne Schwartz, a pastor and professional race driver wrote.
Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy Chief Randy Schlitz described the gridlocked freeway as a "nuclear holocaust" and "Armageddon."
"The stretch between 280 and Liberty Parkway northbound on I-459 is just a parking lot,'' he said."There are at least 1,000 cars, and there's no way to get through. We were freaking out because there were vehicles coming at us the wrong way on 459. They were just trying to maneuver the quagmire."
Many individuals ditched their cars on the night of Jan. 28, some walking up-to four miles to find a place where they could spend the night.
