Waffle House and Hurricanes

My youngest daughter and I had breakfast this morning at our local Waffle House. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to spend a little time with our amazing 16-year-old. To do so while sitting in a brightly-lit, cheerful place and being served good, hot coffee, eggs just the way I like them, and buttery toast? Well, that was just gravy! (Ooh, maybe I should've had the biscuits and gravy...)

Anyway, the location got me thinking about something I'd seen in the news when hurricane Sandy came ashore. Did you know that disaster relief organizations, including FEMA, make use of what is called the "Waffle House Index"? It's true:

FEMA Director Craig Fugate has joked that he watches a “Waffle House Index” to determine the severity of a disaster by the state of a Waffle House in a community. By seeing how much of its menu Waffle House is serving, he says he can tell just how bad it’s been with these three zones:

GREEN: Open and serving a full menu
YELLOW: Open but serving from a limited menu
RED: Location is forced to close

Furgate believes in it so much so that he owns a Team Waffle House Shirt.

But what started as a joke, has become something so much more.

Waffle House franchises are located in many disaster-prone areas (mostly coastal hurricane zones in the Eastern U.S.) and the company has developed strategies for staying open and helping out during severe weather events and other catastrophes. It's also interesting how they've begun making use of Twitter to communicate conditions, not just so people know where they can get a meal, but as an indicator for relief administrators who need to set priorities. Interesting stuff!