Golden potato wedges, gravy-smothered biscuits, and crispy waffles with a hearty helping of maple syrup are among the classic Southern comfort foods. But when hurricanes speed through the southeastern cities, the hot meals and striking yellow signs of the locals Waffle House offering a different kind of comfort.
If a Waffle House in the city remains open, even at a limited capacity, neighbors are reassured that the coming storm is unlikely to cause destruction. A closed location of the reliable restaurant chain signals impending disaster. This measure is known as the Waffle House Index.
What may sound like silly logic has become one of the most reliable ways for Southerners — and even federal officials — to gauge the severity of a storm and identify communities most in need of immediate assistance.
About two dozen Waffle House locations remained closed Tuesday in the Carolinas and the chain’s home state of Georgia, nearly two weeks after the states were among those affected. Hurricane Helene. Several other locations were open but serving a limited menu.
If Hurricane Milton barrels to Florida communities still recovering from Helene, have many Waffle House locations along the Gulf Coast, including those in Tampa, Cape Coral and St. Petersburg, closed in preparation.
The South’s favorite disaster authority provides an informal measure of the extent to which a storm will affect or has affected a community.
A map of the chain’s more than 1,900 locations, concentrated in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, helps residents of storm-prone states assess whether they are likely to lose power, experience severe flooding or will have to endure other extreme conditions that could cause a resilient restaurant to collapse. closes its doors. For some, it’s a telltale sign of whether they should evacuate.
Waffle House is not only known for serving breakfast 24/7, 365 days a year, but also for its disaster preparedness. For decades, people in the South have noticed that the local Waffle House seemed to be the only business still open during a storm, or the first to reopen after it passed.
The restaurant chain’s reputation for staying open when people desperately needed a place to warm up, charge devices and eat a hot meal became a fairly reliable — if funny — source to help track recovery efforts.
Waffle House social media shares color-coded maps of the restaurant locations in certain regions that will soon be affected or recovering from storm damage. The Federal Emergency Management Agency also offers live tracking.
Green means the location is serving a full menu, indicating minimal damage to the area. The lights are on and the syrup is flowing.
Yellow means the restaurant is serving a limited menu, a signal that it is drawing power from a generator and may be running low on food supplies. The area may not have running water or electricity, but there is enough gas to fry bacon for hungry customers.
Red means the location is closed, a sign of unsafe operating conditions and serious damage to the restaurant or nearby communities.
Former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate has said he thought about the Waffle House Index when he led Florida’s emergency management effort in 2004. He was looking for something to eat while studying the devastation caused by Hurricane Charley, but could only find a Waffle House that serves a limited menu.
His team began noticing other open Waffle Houses in communities without power or running water. The restaurants eventually became a key feature on a color-coded map his team provided to help the public and local officials identify where the storm damage was most severe.
Fugate continued to use his color-coded map when he joined FEMA President Barack Obama. He was the agency’s administrator in 2011 when a deadly tornado ripped through the city of Joplin, Missouri. Both of the city’s Waffle Houses reportedly remained open.
The restaurant chain’s preparedness for disaster is no coincidence. In 2005, seven locations were destroyed and another 100 closed Hurricane Katrinabut business leaders saw business skyrocket at restaurants that quickly reopened.
They soon embraced one business strategy According to the company’s website, the company focused on keeping their restaurants operational during and after a disaster. The chain says it has invested in portable generators, purchased a mobile command center and trained employees on what they can do if the electricity goes out.
Waffle House closed many locations in Florida before Hurricane Milton made landfall, indicating that damage is likely to be severe.
Milton was upgraded back to a Category 5 storm Tuesday as it barreled toward the west coast of Florida. The violent storm could happen once in a century direct hit on Tampa and St. Petersburg, overwhelming the densely populated region towering storm surges and removing debris Helene’s devastation in projectiles.