Per Wikipedia:
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.
DS9 s3e3 "The House of Quark"
8 Comments
cmbabul@slrpnk.net · 19 pts · 16d
It is really dumb that we have to have such a metric, but as a born southerner, when I was growing up we didn’t even have to learn about it from any news or weather service. It was just understood that if the Waffle House is closed shit must be really dire and you need to get your ass home as soon as possible
DrBob@lemmy.ca · 19 pts · 16d
Waffle House has an S-tier plan for dealing with emergencies. They will move people in to the area for surge support, shift to the "storm menu" with limited items. They have plans for how to proceed with generators and prioritize functions with limited potable water and on and on. They have amazing preparation and execution.
https://www.scribd.com/document/899965049/Waffle-House-storm-playbook
cmbabul@slrpnk.net · 10 pts · 16d
Oh for sure, wasn’t doubting their credentials at all, we just didn’t need to see them to know. They didn’t even have locks on the doors when I was a kid, they still might not, I sadly don’t live anywhere close to a WaHo anymore. People look at me like I’m crazy when I tell them about all this
grue@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 15d
I fucking hate sites that display something but try to make you pay to download it. Got a better link?
DrBob@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 15d
I don't at the moment. It's readable. Are you just curious or are you in the biz?
grue@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 15d
I'm just curious. As an Atlantan (which is where Waffle House is from), I'm maybe more interested than most.
I was going to argue the point about it being "readable," but then I found the button to hide all the sidebars and BS, which helps.
DrBob@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 15d
K. DRI, BCI, and IAEM all have Waffle House resources as case studies etc. WH really is best of breed at keeping things running under difficult circumstances.
ummthatguy@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 16d