Waffle Home shuttering Tampa areas, indicating Hurricane Milton can be extreme

The Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale has nothing on the Waffle Home Index.

Beloved Southern breakfast mainstay Waffle Home introduced it’s going to shut dozens of Florida areas in Hurricane Milton’s path in an unorthodox — but surprisingly correct — indicator of the storm’s anticipated severity often known as the “Waffle Home Index.”

“Our #whindex standing maps mirror our closures as of 2pm right now upfront of #HurricaneMilton. Extra updates to return. Please keep protected,” the chain wrote in a post on its official X account alongside maps displaying closed areas in Tampa and Fort Myers represented by crimson dots.

The Class 4 hurricane is predicted to make landfall on the west coast of Florida after darkish on Wednesday, bringing doubtlessly catastrophic sustained winds of 145 mph. Tens of millions have fled the state in one of many largest evacuations within the state’s historical past.

The chain’s 1,600 areas dot a lot of the American South, from the mid-Atlantic to Florida and protecting massive swaths of the Gulf Coast space.

However the restaurant has a repute for staying open — albeit typically with restricted menu choices — it doesn’t matter what Mom Nature cooks up.

Even in uncommon situations the place its eating places do shut, akin to throughout Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the eateries endeavor to shortly re-open to offer hungry patrons in storm zones a style of normalcy — with a facet of waffles and grits.

The eating places are so reliably open that the long-lasting illuminated black-and-yellow indicators sign to passing motorists {that a} forecasted storm will not be as worrisome as predicted.

When the indicators are switched off, nevertheless, it signifies a really extreme climate occasion is on the horizon.

“In case you get there and the Waffle Home is closed?” FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate is quoted in a blog post by the corporate. “That’s actually dangerous.  That’s the place you go to work.”

Fugate is credited with conceiving the Waffle Home Index in 2004 whereas searching for out a sizzling meal after surveying harm left by Hurricane Charley. He shortly realized Waffle Home was the one possibility.

As his staff labored following the storm, they discovered many times that Waffle Homes had been usually the lone open eateries in storm-ravaged areas, even those who had misplaced water and energy.

They later collated the open or closed standing of the eating places on a color-coded map distributed by the staff to offer officers and members of the general public an at-a-glance reference displaying the place the storm had executed probably the most harm, CBS reported.

Inexperienced means enterprise as normal, yellow means open with restricted menu choices and the dreaded crimson dots imply a location is closed — indicating vital storm harm or unsafe situations.

Primarily based on the plethora of crimson dots on the present Waffle Home Index map shared by the corporate Wednesday, refuge-seekers might have to attend till Milton has handed via earlier than filling up on sausage biscuits and omelets.