Waffle House has its own hurricane index and storm center. Milton is Code Red. Here’s what that means

Common sense would tell you Floridians concerned about Hurricane Milton would turn to the news and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to stay informed about the storm’s impact. But there’s a third source that many in the South are using that may come as a surprise.

Waffle House, the iconic American restaurant chain with over 1,600 locations known for cooking up Southern breakfast food, has developed an advanced storm center FEMA consults with.

The chain prides itself on being open when its customers need it most but is particularly vulnerable to hurricanes with most of its locations in the Gulf Coast, Florida, the South, and mid-Atlantic. Waffle House said it “fully embraced its post-disaster business strategy after Hurricane Katrina,” when seven restaurants were destroyed and dozens were shut down.

After Katrina, locations that were able to reopen were swarmed with people hungry for a hot meal. Waffle House took notice and “decided to beef up its crisis-management processes.”

“Senior executives developed a manual for opening after a disaster, bulked up on portable generators, bought a mobile command center and gave employees key fobs with emergency contacts,” the company said on its website.

Now, sales often double or triple in the aftermath of a storm. The company said it tries to be as prepared as possible for hurricanes so it can help the community.

“If you factor in all the resources we deploy, the equipment we lease, the extra supplies trucked in, the extra manpower we bring in, a place for them to stay, you can see we aren’t doing it for the sales those restaurants generate,” Pat Warner, a member of the Waffle House crisis-management team, said on the company’s website.

Waffle House now has its own storm center, which Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp visited Tuesday.

The chain also developed the Waffle House Storm Index, which was started after former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said, “If you get there and the Waffle House is closed? That’s really bad. That’s where you go to work.”

Waffle House has labeled Milton, a Category 4 storm, as a “Code Red,” which means the company has closed its locations in the path of the storm. A “Yellow” rating means that the location will have a limited menu and that the area might not have power. A “Green” index means the store is operating as normal.

In many hurricane-prone communities, people look at Waffle House’s decision to remain open or shut down as a sign of whether they should evacuate.

One Twitter user in Florida wrote Wednesday, “Update: all Waffle Houses near our house are closed. If you don’t know, the one ironclad rule of hurricanes is if a Waffle House closes, s—-’s getting real.”