Golden hashbrowns, gravy-smothered biscuits and crispy waffles with a hearty helping of maple syrup are among the classic Southern comfort foods. But when hurricanes tear through Southeastern towns, the hot meals and bold yellow signs of the local Waffle House provide another kind of comfort.

If a Waffle House stays open in town, even in a limited capacity, neighbors are reassured that the coming storm is unlikely to cause devastation. A closed location of the dependable diner chain has come to indicate impending disaster. The metric is known as the Waffle House Index.

What might sound like silly logic has become one of the most reliable ways for Southerners — and even federal officials — to gauge a storm’s severity and identify communities most in need of immediate aid.

About two dozen Waffle House locations remained closed in the Carolinas and the chain’s home state of Georgia on Tuesday, nearly two weeks after the states were among those battered by Hurricane Helene. Several other locations were open but serving a limited menu.

As Hurricane Milton closes in on Florida communities still recovering from Helene, many Waffle House locations along the Gulf Coast, including those in Tampa, Cape Coral and St. Petersburg, have closed in preparation.

What is it?

The South’s favorite disaster authority provides an informal measure of how significantly a storm will affect or has affected a community.

A map of the chain’s over 1,900 locations, concentrated in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic, helps residents of storm-prone states assess whether they’re likely to lose power, experience severe flooding or endure other extreme conditions that might cause a resilient restaurant to close its doors. For some, it’s a telltale sign of whether they need to evacuate.

Waffle House is known not just for serving breakfast 24/7, 365 days a year, but also for its disaster preparedness.

The restaurant chain’s reputation for remaining open when people desperately needed a place to warm up, charge devices and grab a hot meal became a fairly reliable — albeit amusing — resource to help track recovery efforts. The company even operates its own storm center, which Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp visited Tuesday as he continues to assess damage from Helene and prepare for Milton’s impact.

How does it work?

Waffle House’s social media shares color-coded maps of its restaurant locations in certain regions that will soon be hit or are recovering from storm damage. The Federal Emergency Management Agency also offers some live tracking.

Green means the location is serving a full menu, indicating minimal damage in the surrounding area. Yellow means the restaurant is serving a limited menu, a signal that it’s pulling power from a generator and might have a low food supply. Red means the location is closed, a sign of unsafe operating conditions and severe destruction to the restaurant or nearby communities.

Hurricane Milton

Waffle House closed many Florida locations before Hurricane Milton made landfall, indicating damage to the area would likely be severe.

Milton was churning toward the center of Florida’s west coast and could land a once-in-a-century direct hit on Tampa and St. Petersburg. Residents had been strongly encouraged to evacuate.