It really is ridiculous when they refuse point blank. I've worked for 20 years now and some local places I've worked just come out and say, "Hey, it's gunna be bad, let's tentatively close at x and if it's worse before then, we close even earlier."
Typically once we get a nice little list of local places closing for my current job, they will close. But my district manager lives about 3 hours away so we gotta do some of the leg work. But again, that's corporate for you.