When the weather forecast turns ugly, as just happened with Hurricanes Helene or Milton, Florida families do the same thing as any neighbor’s child: they look for information that will help them understand how serious the threat is. To find out, they have the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). And they have Waffle House, a veteran US restaurant chain famous for its southern breakfasts. The first is what is expected. Not the second. However, Waffle House has become such a popular benchmark for measuring the extent of natural disasters that it even has its own index.
One that is especially popular and that even the administration pays attention to.
What does Waffle House say (and do)? A question similar to that is the one that many families in the United States ask themselves when a storm or hurricane like Helene or Milton is approaching. Curiously, Waffle House is not a weather agency nor the name of a crisis management center. No. It is a restaurant chain founded in 1955 with almost 2,000 locations spread throughout the south and the Gulf Coast of the United States. Over time it has gained fame for its southern breakfasts and something else: its establishments are open against all odds. Never better said.
Click on the image to go to the tweet.
Why’s that? If your stores close, things have gotten really bad and a major hurricane is coming. Since it usually doesn’t take long to reopen after storms, the fact that a Waffle House restaurant remains closed is a sign that the damage to its surroundings has been considerable. It is so effective in both that over the years it has gained a reputation for being a reliable indicator of the extent of certain natural disasters. In the case of Milton, for example, it chose to close many of its locations in Florida before the hurricane made landfall.
The Waffle House Index. A couple of decades ago, Craig Fugate was inspecting the destruction left behind by Hurricane Charley in Florida when he became hungry. When he was looking for a place to eat, he came across a Waffle House that offered a shortened menu. That would not have been an anecdote if it were not for the fact that over time Fugate’s team noticed that this scene was repeated in other places. Even if they were in communities without electricity or water, they found a store from the same chain open. The idea of the Waffle House Index emerged, an unofficial reference to the extent of storms.
Over time, Fugate prospered at FEMA, an organization that he managed, and continued to use that peculiar reference of southern breakfast restaurants. The AP recalls that in 2011, with Fugate at the head of FEMA, a Missouri city was hit by a terrible tornado. His two Waffle Houses remained open.
Three colors, one message. Over time the index has become a reference. One with its own color code. As Waffle House explains, it uses a three-tone system: green, yellow and red, more or less like a traffic light. Green identifies the chain’s locations with a complete menu, which means that it is possible to find exactly the same food there as on a normal day, free of storms or hurricanes. Why does that matter? Because it reveals that “the damage in the area” has been “limited.” If you can eat the usual waffles it is because there is electricity, gas, supplies, etc. Things are going well.
When an establishment is assigned the color yellow, its customers are being notified that they have a menu at their disposal, but “limited.” What does that mean, other than maybe they can’t eat their favorite pancakes? That food supplies are low and there is the possibility that the establishment operates with the help of an electric generator. Finally, if the establishment is marked red it means that it remains closed. The reading is again intuitive: your blinds are still lowered because there is “serious damage” or “insecurity” in the environment.
Closed? Bad news. The most graphic interpretation of the index was left by Fugate himself a while ago: “You arrive and the Waffle House is closed? That’s really bad. That’s where you go to work.” Nowadays it is very easy to keep track of the index. The company itself discloses it on networks. Over the past few days he has in fact frequently updated his maps with color to report on the impact of Helen and Milton. In fact, and following the logic of the index, a look at their maps reveals which areas fear receiving Milton’s worst punishment. Or which ones have suffered the most in their wake. They will be full of red dots. Without further ado.
The chain boasts of being one of the references that FEMA officials look at to evaluate the destructive power of a storm or hurricane, along with others, such as the Saffir-Simpson scale. The federal agency itself recognizes that local businesses provide a valuable clue to the impact that natural disasters have on a community. In addition to Waffle House, there are other companies that stand out for their reaction to disasters, such as Wal-Mart or Lowe’s.
Click on the image to go to the tweet.
But… How is it possible? Because Waffle House has a lot riding on how it responds to storms. The company has between 1,600 and 1,900 locations distributed mainly in the south and the Gulf Coast, a region particularly vulnerable to hurricanes. In fact, in 2005, Katrina made him understand how exposed he was: he had to close a hundred establishments and seven were destroyed. The company verified something else, equally or even more interesting: the stores that managed to reopen quickly ended up “flooded with customers.”
So the chain decided to “reinforce” its “crisis management processes.” As the company itself explains, its managers prepared a disaster manual, purchased portable generators, a mobile command center and made sure that their staff had emergency contacts. It has even been equipped with its own Storm Center, which it activates when necessary, and a “strategy manual” for exceptional scenarios. In it he explains issues such as the importance of adapting the menu or how to work if there is gas but no power.
Meteorology… and dollars. Waffle House does not hide that being the first or one of the first to open its doors favors its turnover. And remarkably so, too. An article published in 2011 by Wall Street Journal and shared by the company ensures that the sales volume of establishments after a storm doubles or triples. Does that translate into more benefits? Pat Warner, from the firm’s crisis management team, said that the relationship is not so clear because the company also needs to reinforce its expenses in these cases.
“If you take into account all the resources we deploy, the equipment we rent, the additional supplies we truck in, the additional labor we call on, a place for them to stay… you can see that we don’t do it for the sales that those restaurants generate,” he argued.
What is undeniable is that this strategy against storms and hurricanes has become a very effective marketing campaign. The non-stop Southern breakfast chain can boast of being one of the few businesses open when people need a place to shelter and eat. And to serve as a reference for the dangers that are coming or their scope once they have passed.
Reference for administration. Perhaps its greatest achievement has been that the Waffle House index is not just an unofficial indicator for the neighbors of the southern states of the United States. The administration itself takes this into account. AP News recalls that Fugate continued to use the color map when he arrived at FEMA. A few days ago, Georgia Governor Brian P. Kemp even visited the Waffle House Storm Center in person, where he took several photos. “Thanks to the operations team for their great work,” he later wrote on his X account.
FEMA recognizes on its official website that the Waffle House index offers a valuable indicator to assess “the damage in a neighborhood” after a storm and media such as ABC News or AP point out that the chain is one of the agency’s allies, one of the companies they look at to assess how businesses respond in areas affected by the blow of major storms or hurricanes.
Images | Sarah Stierch (Flickr), Waffle House (X) and Milla Paglia (Flickr)
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