How can a Waffle House assist disaster response?

Hurricane Idalia made landfall as a Category 3 storm last week, bringing destructive winds, catastrophic storm surge, and flash flooding from heavy rain, costing billions in damage. Impacts from the storm were felt from Florida's Big Bend coast up to North Carolina.

Now that floodwaters have receded, the focus shifts to recovery – a process Craig Fugate has led many times.

Former Director of Florida Division of Emergency Management and former Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Craig Fugate, is well known for the disaster response philosophy he created called the Waffle House Index.

He explained the concept during a Safer Futures podcast recording with FloodMapp CEO and Co-Founder Juliette Murphy. Watch it below.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/404c1a_59f0d97d4b114e2d9786400b98386d84/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

The Waffle House Index is an effective metric to quickly assess the level of impact to a community and prioritize who needs the most help. The status of service providers that are known for their commitment to operating 24/7 can be a great indicator for the level of disruption felt by the community.

FloodMapp’s NowCast and PostCast capabilities have been developed to support this - providing emergency managers with complete situational awareness in real time from within their Emergency Operations Center. The data allows emergency managers to immediately assess impact to people, property, road, rail and utilities infrastructure, conduct preliminary damage assessments to support disaster declarations and funding applications and enable targeted restoration and relief activities to fast-track community recovery.

If you’d like to know more about how FloodMapp can help you assess the impact of floodwater in real-time, request a demo with our team here or contact us via hello@floodmapp.com.

To learn more about how FloodMapp has assisted in the response and recovery of Hurricane Idalia, read our latest StoryMap here.