'Waffle House Index' shows Florida closures as Hurricane Milton approaches
Hurricane Milton is approaching central Florida, with the powerful storm due to make landfall late Wednesday, and it has Floridians monitoring the "Waffle House Index" for impacts to their area as the storm moves through and the recovery process begins.
Waffle House, a popular restaurant chain that has many locations in the mid-Atlantic to Florida and across the Gulf Coast, serves a region susceptible to hurricanes and other severe weather. As a result, Waffle House has prioritized trying to reopen as quickly as possible in the wake of disasters and the Waffle House Index was developed as an indicator of a storm's impact on a given area.
Hurricane Milton, which is classified as a Category 4 hurricane as of Wednesday afternoon, is projected to make landfall along Florida's Gulf Coast and bring "life-threatening" storm surge as well as high winds. It is then projected to track across central Florida to the state's Atlantic Coast.
As of 2 p.m. ET on Wednesday, the Waffle House Index showed closures throughout the Tampa Bay-St. Petersburg area along with Fort Myers on the Gulf Coast. Across central Florida, closures were reported in the Orlando and Ocala and Daytona areas — though Waffle Houses in the Miami and Gainesville areas remained open.
Waffle House VP of food safety and public relations Njeri Boss told FOX Business in a statement, "Our mission remains to keep our associates out of harm's way. Accordingly, in areas predicted to be hardest hit, we are preemptively closing restaurants with a goal of reopening them as soon as it is safe to do so to serve the communities that have been there for us over the years.
"Locations in areas predicted to be in the path of the storm and likely to suffer significant damage, or where mandatory evacuations have been ordered are places where preemptive closures are taking place as a safety precaution."
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There are three levels in the Waffle House index, which correspond to the level of service available at a given restaurant and can also offer insight into the extent of damage and whether power is online in the area.
Green indicates that the Waffle House is offering a full menu, which implies the restaurant has power and sustained minimal or no damage.
Yellow means the Waffle House has a limited menu because the restaurant has either lost power or is being powered by a generator, or its food supplies are running low.
Red indicates the restaurant is closed, which can be due to evacuation orders in advance of the storm or severe damage sustained in the storm and unsafe conditions.
The Waffle House Index originated in 2011 with Craig Fugate, then the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), after a devastating tornado swept through Joplin, Missouri, and two of the chain's locations remained open.
"If you get there and the Waffle House is closed? That's really bad. That's where you go to work," Fugate said of the Waffle House Index as an indicator of damage from a natural disaster.