ORLANDO, Fla. – Floridians have special signals that a hurricane is going to be bad: Disney World closing. Sen. Rick Scott dons his “Navy” hat. The Waffle House is closed.
It takes a lot to close a Waffle House, so when the 24-hour diner announces it’s closing locations, Floridians know they need to get prepared.
Starting Wednesday afternoon, Waffle House began closing dozens of locations throughout Florida because of Hurricane Milton, including Tampa Bay, Southwest Florida, Orlando, Ocala, Daytona Beach, and the Space Coast.
On Thursday afternoon, many Waffle Houses in Central Florida, Tampa Bay and Southwest Florida were still closed, and the ones that were open could only offer limited service.
Our Operations Team is working hard to get our restaurants back up and running to provide comfort and support to the first responders and communities impacted by #HurricaneMilton.
— Waffle House (@WaffleHouse) October 10, 2024
These are the #whindex unit status maps as of 2PM today. pic.twitter.com/xgZkChc1DU
The Waffle House Index is an unofficial scale for understanding how bad a natural disaster hit a community. It was first created by Craig Fugate, the former FEMA director and former Florida Emergency Management director.
- An area is in the green if the Waffle Houses are open, have full power, and are serving a full menu.
- An area is in the yellow if the Waffle Houses are open, but the menu is limited. There may also be a loss of power.
- An area is in the red if the Waffle Houses are closed.
Waffle House has a reputation for being open when customers need them, so after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 the company created a manual for opening after a disaster, added portable generators, and created special teams to help get stores up and running after a storm.
During Hurricane Ian in 2022, 40 Waffle Houses were closed at the height of the storm. A couple of days later, only six Waffle Houses were closed in the southwest Florida areas where the storm made landfall.
A Waffle House spokesperson told News 6 that the maps would only be available on X.com, so customers should look for updates there. The information is not available on the Waffle House website.
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