Walmart’s meteorologist starts his days at 3:45 a.m. when a hurricane is on the way

Tom Bedard, Walmart’s in-house meteorologist, delivers a morning briefing on Tuesday.

“Gray-sky days” start around 3:45 a.m. for Walmart’s in-house meteorologist, Tom Bedard.

Bedard, a 32-year-old Texas native, told B-17 that when storms are brewing offshore, he’s up in time to read through the 4 a.m. note from the National Hurricane Center — the first of four daily dispatches scheduled every six hours while a storm is tracked.

Two weeks ago, Hurricane Helene was ripping through Appalachia. This week, Hurricane Milton is bearing down on the Gulf Coast of Florida.

As Walmart has more than 5,200 stores across the US, not to mention warehouses, trucks, and other support facilities, severe weather is a significant concern, especially during hurricane season.

Bedard arrived at Walmart just after Idalia — the only hurricane to make landfall in the US last year — and following six years at AccuWeather and five years at the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center.

Now, as Milton gathers steam, Bedard is responsible for leading a group of 10 emergency support groups that cut across the retail giant’s divisions, including store operations, logistics, and more.

Walmart’s Emergency Operations Center in Bentonville, Arkansas.

“We’ve been coordinating across all different parts of the business unit to make sure that what we’re doing for the field comes down with one voice,” he told B-17. “We’ve got a responsibility, first and foremost, to make sure our associates are safe, and that if there’s a facility that’s in an evacuation area, that folks are taking the proper action.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, Walmart’s status tracker showed that more than half of its 385 stores in Florida were closed in anticipation of Milton’s arrival.

Bedard said that while he and other meteorologists generally avoid making specific recommendations about what other teams in the company should do, his morning briefings are stacked with a hundred people in Bentonville, Arkansas, and several hundred more online looking for guidance about what to expect.

A spokesperson said that Walmart’s CEO, Doug McMillon, and its US CEO, John Furner, had attended several briefings this week and dropped in on the command center throughout the day to check on the storm’s progress.

“Instead of having all these different business units using different sources of weather,” Bedard said, “we’re able to come together and say, ‘This is the person that we work with in normal conditions to ensure we’re resourced for any natural disaster, and now this person’s giving us the weather information when we need it most.'”

Bedard at work.

Under normal conditions, or “blue-sky days,” Bedard spends his time meeting with people across the company and helping draft plans for significant weather events on the horizon.

“What they teach us in our entry-level emergency-management courses is develop those relationships so when you need them at 3 o’clock in the morning for a tornado, you’ve got them right there,” he said.

Walmart’s sheer number of stores and its proximity to so many American households also mean the retailer plays a role in communities’ preparation for and response to disasters.

“We’re still heavily involved in Hurricane Helene’s recovery in the Southeast and southern Appalachia,” Bedard said.

A convoy of Walmart trucks heading to Asheville, North Carolina, following Hurricane Helene.

Walmart has so far committed $10 million to post-Helene efforts, a figure that includes donations of food, water, and supplies, as well as grants to relief organizations.

“When you need to make something happen, there’s a Sam’s Club or a supply-chain facility that can be there to support it,” Bedard said. “We want to support communities. As soon as we’ve got our associate safety taken care of, we really take great pride in what we’re able to do for communities across the nation.”

More than the bottomless espressos, what drives Bedard during these storms is personal experience.

“Growing up in Houston in the 2000s, I got to see the Gulf Coast hurricane seasons at their worst. I was there for Katrina — being able to take in some of the Katrina refugees in Houston — and there for Rita,” he said. “Being able to learn more about something that terrified me is how I found my way into weather.”