Bad Sign: 25 Waffle Houses Closed Due To Hurricane Matthew

NORCROSS, GA — Need further proof that Hurricane Matthew is the real deal? Look no further than Waffle House.

The stalwart, 24-hour breakfast chain has closed down at least 25 restaurants in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, Waffle House announced Friday morning on Twitter.

And that's saying something.

Headquartered in Norcross, Georgia, Waffle House is so closely identified with being open — 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year — that a widely believed urban legend (falsely) states the restaurants don't even have locks on their doors.

So loathe is the WaHo to deny fans their scattered, smothered and covered meals that the Federal Emergency Management Agency takes note when they do.

FEMA's color-coded Waffle House Index is an unofficial measuring stick agents use when they go into an area facing a natural disaster.

"Green" means the Waffle House is open and serving a full menu. "Yellow," is for when it's open, but with limited menu items. "Red" means the Waffle House is closed and, by extension, things must be really bad.

To be clear, many of the Waffle Houses that have shuttered so far, particularly in Georgia and South Carolina, have done so as a precaution.

When the Waffle House Index — started by former FEMA director Craig Fugate — will really be used is in the storm's aftermath, when agents are looking to determine how badly an area was hit.

(In fairness, we should mention that agents look at other companies too, including Home Depot and Walmart. But none of those places have ever served us eggs at 2 a.m.)

By 11 a.m. Friday, Hurricane Matthew was a Category 3 storm with sustained winds of up to 120 mph.

The storm's eye was sitting just off the northeast Florida coast, about 35 miles northeast of Daytona Beach and 95 miles southeast of Jacksonville.

It was moving north-northwest at a speed of 12 mph, with a projected path that would send it straight up the Atlantic coast, through the rest of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas by the weekend.

Image via Wikimedia Commons