Waffle House Index

A Waffle House mostly reduced to rubble in Biloxi, Mississippi, after Hurricane Katrina

The Waffle House Index is a metric named after the ubiquitous Southern US restaurant chain Waffle House known for its 24-hour, 365-day service. Since this restaurant always remains open, 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.[1][2] It was coined by former administrator Craig Fugate of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).[3] The metric is unofficially[1][4] used by FEMA to inform disaster response.[5][6]

  1. ^ a b Rossman, Sean (September 7, 2017). "How FEMA uses Waffle Houses in disasters". USA Today. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
  2. ^ Zraick, Karen; Caron, Christina (September 13, 2018). "Landfall, Storm Surge and the Waffle House Index: Hurricane Terms and What They Mean". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference EHS was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Mettler, Katie (October 7, 2016). "The 'Waffle House index': Hurricane Matthew is so scary even the always-open eatery is evacuating". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
  5. ^ McKnight, Brent; Linnenluecke, Martina K. (2016). "How Firm Responses to Natural Disasters Strengthen Community Resilience: A Stakeholder-Based Perspective". Organization & Environment. 29 (3): 290–307. doi:10.1177/1086026616629794. ISSN 1086-0266. JSTOR 26164770. S2CID 147604088 – via JSTOR.
  6. ^ Wolff-Mann, Ethan (October 7, 2016). "Here's what FEMA told us about the Waffle House Index". Yahoo! Finance. Retrieved October 31, 2021.