After Hurricane Helene made landfall in northwest Florida, a single photo of a boarded-up Waffle House has been declared the “scariest image on the Internet.”
The chain, whose restaurants are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, is famous for staying open during many natural disasters, with the so-called ‘Waffle House Index’, a metric used to measure the severity and damage caused. by a storm. .
Images posted to
The Waffle House Index was coined by Craig Fugate in 2011 after the Joplin tornado in Missouri. Fugate was the FEMA administrator at the time.
‘If you get there and Waffle House is closed, that’s really bad. “That’s where you’re going to work,” he said. assuming the index.
As Hurricane Helene prepares to make landfall in northwest Florida, a single photo of a boarded-up Waffle House in Crawfordville has been declared the “scariest image.”
The index is an informal measure of the severity of a storm and its effect on the affected community by measuring how many Waffle House restaurants remain open or what menu items are still served during storms.
According to the restaurant chain website, Green means the restaurant is serving a full menu, a sign that damage to an area is limited and the lights are on.
Yellow means a limited menu, indicating generator power, at best, and food shortages.
Red means the restaurant is closed, a sign of serious damage to the area or unsafe conditions, as indicated by the current index.
Helene was classified as a Category 4 storm overnight and forecasters warned southeast residents to prepare for a “nightmare.”
In Crawfordville, where the viral image of one of the chain’s restaurants is located, alarmed residents were preparing to take shelter when the storm hit and called the snapshot the “scariest image” of the storm.
The eerie images show wooden boards covering the restaurant’s windows, with the usually busy chain completely empty.
“Helene is about to start some BIG things in Florida,” read the caption accompanying the image. ‘The Waffle House Index has never lied, and this is the scariest image on the Internet today. IYKYK,” another shared.
“Waffle House scale stops at closed… new scale limit reached: Waffle House boarded up,” one concerned user posted.
The index is an informal measure of the severity of a storm and its effect on the affected community.
At the time of this writing, Hurricane Helene hit the southeastern United States, and U.S. authorities warned people that they could drown in their homes if they did not heed evacuation alerts.
Parts of Florida and Georgia are facing “insurmountable” conditions due to the risk of “storm surge,” a weather phenomenon described as a “wall of water.”
Helene had already triggered warnings and several states of emergency, not only in Florida, but also in Georgia and the Carolinas. More than 60 million Americans in 12 states are under some type of advisory.
Floridians who didn’t evacuate ahead of Hurricane Helene posted horrifying images overnight as the storm battered their homes.
The hurricane is now moving through Georgia after making landfall in Florida, leaving six people dead and more than three million without power in several states.
The storm was upgraded to a Category 4 Thursday night and hit the Big Bend region of the state shortly after 11 p.m.
Florida is now experiencing storm surges up to 20 feet and winds over 100 mph.