The Index has three levels, based on the extent of operations and service at the restaurant following a storm. According to Fugate, “If you get there and the Waffle House is closed? That’s really bad. At that time, the two Waffle House restaurants in Joplin remained open despite the EF5 multiple-vortex tornado. The index was created by FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate in May 2011, following a major tornado in Joplin, Missouri. Seven of its restaurants were destroyed and 100 more shut down, but those that reopened quickly were swamped with customers and generated a lot of goodwill. The company fully embraced its post-disaster business strategy after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. For example, Hurricane Irene knocked out power in Weldon, North Carolina on a Saturday evening, but as the sun rose on at 6:30 the next morning, the local Waffle House, still without electricity, was cooking up scrambled eggs and sausage biscuits with a limited (gas) “grill only” menu (see below). The standard is based upon the reputation of the restaurant chain for staying open during extreme weather and for reopening quickly, even if with only a limited menu, after very severe weather events. The Waffle House Index is an informal metric used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to understand the impact of a severe storm and the likely scale of assistance required for disaster recovery. Comedian Jim Gaffigan jokes that the Waffle House “makes the IHOP seem international.” When I was a student at Duke, Waffle House restaurants (I use the term “restaurants” loosely) were ubiquitous along the interstates of North Carolina and elsewhere in the South. Their yellow-and-black signs haven’t changed in the 30+ years since, and their laminated menus with color photos are an intentional throwback to the heyday of the highway diner.
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