Waffle House Index

Rare card · No. 29941

The Waffle House Index is a metric named after the Southern US restaurant chain Waffle House known for its 24-hour, 365-day service. Because the restaurant chain is always open (except in extreme circumstances), 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. The metric was coined by Craig Fugate in August 2004 after Hurricane Charley. He was leading the Florida Division of Emergency Management. The metric is unofficially used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to inform disaster response.

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