Sounds simple, right? But people rarely do it! But that’s one of the reasons Waffle House keeps standing, while other businesses don’t. It is consistently and clearly written, easy to follow, and updated regularly. The Waffle House has a written, living disaster operations manual. “The storm lasted days, most roads were closed and power outages were rampant, but we were able to get or keep most of our restaurants up and running,” Waffle House President and CEO Walt Ehmer said. Even during the 1993 ‘ Storm of the Century‘, they were able to keep running. However, the company got 75 percent of its affected restaurants back up and running within a few days. Seven locations were completely lost to the storm ( shown above). Their biggest test was in Hurricane Katrina, when they had to shut down 107 of their 1,752 stores. How Well Their Disaster Plan Worksīecause the Waffle House is so well prepared for disasters, it’s rare for the index to hit red. The Insurance Information Institute estimates 25 percent of businesses that close following a natural disaster never recover. The Waffle House Index doesn’t just indicate if a restaurant location may rebound, but how well the surrounding community is going. Red (Closed): The restaurant is closed, indicating severe damage. Yellow (Limited Menu): No power or only power from a generator, or food supplies may be low. Green (Full Menu): The restaurant has power, and damage is limited. The index has three levels, based on the extent of operations and service at a Waffle House restaurant following a storm: So what is the Waffle House Index? It’s a very simple metric used by FEMA, side-by-side with their more formal measurements of wind, rainfall, and other information (E.g. So how does the Waffle House manage to keep their business running no matter what disaster strikes? Here’s how they do it. This was after the 2011 Joplin tornado, when two Waffle House restaurants in the city remained open. “When you get there and the Waffle House is closed? That’s really bad,” the FEMA Administrator famously remarked in May 2011. These waffle stores are so resilient, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) uses them to gauge how bad a storm is – they call it “the Waffle House Index“. Is it an IT company? No, it’s actually a chain of waffle stores. There is a business well known for able to stay open 24/7/365 – even if they’re hit by tornadoes, hurricanes, or snowstorms.
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