How a waffle restaurant helps emergency services know how bad a storm is

Waffle House, a 24-hour, 365-day-a-year breakfast chain, was once described by Anthony Bourdain as an ‘always faithful’ beacon of safety.

Most of the 1,700 Waffle House locations are dotted in the south and along the East Coast, and have generators and backup systems in case of emergency.

So if the humble, steadfast Waffle House is closed during a hurricane or snowstorm, FEMA knows the situation is bad.

A ‘bomb cyclone’ of winter weather brought the south to a standstill this weekend, but forecasters partially relied on a unique index to gauge the severity of the storm.

To see just how bad a storm like this weekend’s could be, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which helps coordinate disaster relief, relies on the Waffle House Index.

The ‘Waffle House Index’ was created by former FEMA administrator Craig Fugate, who made a unique observation when coordinating a rescue response after a disaster in 2004.

‘If you get there and Waffle House is closed? That’s really bad,’ Fugate previously said.

And it appears Fugate’s observation was right – so right, in fact, that FEMA now uses the Waffle House index officially.

FEMA gauges how severe the disaster is, whether power, water and other essentials are restored and how quickly the area gets back to normal by seeing if the Waffle House locations are open.

The index has three levels: green, yellow and red.

Green means the Waffle House is open with a full menu, signifying minimum damage from the storm.

Yellow means the locations are open, but serving a limited menu, which could signal moderate damage or no power in some areas.

Red means the Waffle Houses are closed, and severe damage has hit the area.

The always reliable breakfast chain has a reputation for feeding the masses, rich and poor.

After a hurricane knocked out power in North Carolina, by 6.30 am the next day, employees were cooking eggs and sausage biscuits for those who didn’t have the means to eat.

The reliability of Waffle House means that sales can triple in the aftermath of a storm, but the company refuses to discuss the costs and benefits of reopening after disasters.

It says its strategy is more about marketing and building goodwill than making a profit during disasters.

Pat Warner, a member of Waffle House’s crisis-management team, said: ‘If you factor in all the resources we deploy, the equipment we lease, the extra supplies trucked in, the extra manpower we bring in, a place for them to stay, you can see we aren’t doing it for the sales those restaurants generate.’

In 2011, after Hurricane Irene devastated North Carolina, Waffle House manager Reggie Smith drove 100 miles to help customers who were forced to evacuate the storm to eat at other locations.

‘They’re displaced from their life. This is a brief bit of normal,’ he said.

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