How the Waffle House Index Measures Storm Severity

As Hurricane Helene approached Florida on Thursday, several local Waffle House locations closed, leaving users on social media worried about the severity of the storm.

Ahead of Helene making landfall at approximately 11:10 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 26, Waffle House reportedly closed all of its locations in Tallahassee and Crawfordville.

"Our mission always has been to keep our Associates out of harm's way," Njeri Boss, Vice President of Food Safety & Public Relations for Waffle House, told TODAY.com via email. "Accordingly, in areas predicted to be hardest hit and those where mandatory evacuations were ordered, we did preemptively close restaurants."

Boss added, "Thereafter, we planned to reopen them as soon as it is safe so we could serve and support the communities in which we are located."

By Friday morning, a social media user shared on X that a location in Tallahassee was back up and running.

Over the last decade, the Waffle House Index has been unofficially used to determine the severity of damage caused by a storm based on whether or not the restaurant chain, which normally operates 24/7, remains open.

But, some users online have used it to help understand how destructive a storm might be.

"The fact that Waffle House has closed BEFORE Hurricane Helene makes landfall is truly disturbing," one user on the social media site X wrote.

Another user added , "I cannot overstate how scary this image is. Helene is expected to make landfall as a Cat 4, with storm surges up to 20ft, and a Waffle House has not only closed, but boarded up? Danger. Extreme danger."

Since Thursday evening, Helene, which made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, has wreaked havoc over much of the Southeast. NBC News reported that there have been at least 42 deaths due to the storm.

The damage caused by Helene has also left more than 3.8 million customers without power across several states including Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Illinois.

What is the Waffle House Index? The Waffle House Index was penned by Craig Fugate, the former head of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. Fugate helped develop the metric while serving at Florida's Department of Emergency Management from 2001-2009.

The index, which is unofficially used by FEMA to determine the damage in an area, uses three colors to determine the severity of the aftermath based on Waffle House's behaviors, according to FEMA .

Green means that the chain's power is on and they are able to serve the full menu, while yellow means that there is a limited menu due to factors including no running water or electricity or diminishing food supplies. Red, the most severe, indicates that Waffle House is closed.

"If you get there and the Waffle House is closed?" Fugate said, according to a blog post from Waffle House. "That's really bad. That's where you go to work."

How has the Waffle House Index been used? While the Waffle House Index has been viewed by users on social media as a sign that a storm will be severe, the index was created for a different reason.

"The index was for aftermath, for damage assessments," Philip Strouse, a former Private Sector Liaison for FEMA, told Yahoo Finance in 2016.

However, Strouse said that FEMA took into account closures before the fact as well, adding, "It gives us a feel for what is actually happening—like social media—from the private sector side."

Waffle House has experienced weather based closures dating back to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which destroyed seven restaurants and temporarily closed down 100 before they reopened.

The chain has experienced non-hurricane related disasters as well, including deadly tornadoes in early 2011, which was followed later in the year by Hurricane Irene. While some restaurants were destroyed, others went without power and were ultimately reopened.

Ahead of Hurricane Matthew in 2016, Waffle House preemptively closed 25 restaurants in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. The chain followed suit in 2022, closing 21 locations in Florida that were in the path of Hurricane Ian.

Waffle House shared in a blog post that it embraces its "post-disaster business strategy" to serve the community. While the locations that reopen post disaster tend to get swamped with customers, the company is less focused on the profits.

"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," Pat Warner, a member of Waffle House's crisis-management team said.