Waffle House Index

[1] Since this restaurant always remains open (except in extreme circumstances), it has given rise to an informal but useful metric to determine the severity of a storm and the likely scale of assistance required for disaster recovery.

[6][7] The index is based on Waffle House's reputation for having good disaster preparedness and staying open during extreme weather or reopening quickly afterwards.

Because of this, and the fact that a cut-down menu is prepared for times when there is no power or limited supplies, the Waffle House Index rarely reaches the red (closed) level.

[4][8] The "Waffle House Index" sits alongside more formal measures of wind, rainfall, and other weather information, such as the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale, which are used to indicate the intensity of a storm.

The success of the private sector in preparing for and weathering disasters is essential to a community's ability to recover in the long run.A FOIA request response in 2017 included emails saying that the Waffle House Index was a personal project of Craig Fugate's, denying a connection between the Waffle House Index and FEMA's National Business Emergency Operations Center.

A Waffle House mostly reduced to rubble in Biloxi, Mississippi , after Hurricane Katrina in 2005
A Waffle House Index map prepared by FEMA during the February 2014 nor'easter , showing disruptions to operations in Georgia and South Carolina.
"When a Hurricane Strikes, Weather the Storm With Waffles" video news report from Voice of America