Waffle House is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
AP
Waffle House is known for staying open during many natural disasters.
The chain’s policy has provided an unofficial way for FEMA to track the severity of a natural disaster.
If a Waffle House closes, it suggests the event was bad enough to potentially have devastating effects on the economy.
Waffle House announced on Wednesday that it is closing 21 locations in mandatory evacuation zones in Florida in anticipation of Hurricane Ian, which has strengthened to a Category 4 storm.
Historically, such closures by the company have indicated more than just locals going waffle-less: The Federal Emergency Management Agency uses it to track the severity of a natural disaster, an unofficial “Waffle House Index” that monitors potentially dangerous events.
The chain, whose restaurants are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, is famous for staying open during many natural disasters. When it closes, that suggests an especially bad event that is likely to have devastating effects on the economy.
“If a Waffle House store is open and offering a full menu, the index is green,” a 2011 article in the magazine EHS Today says. “If it is open but serving from a limited menu, it’s yellow. When the location has been forced to close, the index is red.”
This doesn’t just show FEMA how quickly a business might rebound, it also shows it how the larger community is doing.
“The sooner restaurants, grocery and corner stores, or banks can re-open, the sooner local economies will start generating revenue again — signaling a stronger recovery for that community,” FEMA said in a blog post in 2011.
“If we are open quickly after the storm broke, that means the community is coming back and we are getting back to that sense of normalcy,” Pat Warner, director of PR at Waffle House, said in an interview with CNN in 2018, just before Hurricane Florence hit.
In the past, Waffle House has taken to social media to share its role in natural disaster tracking, such as announcing in September 2018 that its “Storm Center” was monitoring Hurricane Florence. The company closed 20 stores at the time.
—Waffle House News (@WaffleHouseNews) September 11, 2018
Waffle House has 2,100 restaurants across 25 states, most of which are in the South.
Warner told CNN in 2018 that Waffle House prepares for a storm’s aftermath by having resources like generators, food, and staff at the ready outside (but close to) the impacted area so that it can reopen as soon as possible.
Hurricane Ian’s “extremely dangerous” eyewall started to approach shore as of 12 p.m. ET on Wednesday, bringing winds of 155 mph and expected heavy rainfall of up to 24 inches for much of Florida, according to the National Hurricane Center.