'Out of harm's way': Dozens of Florida Waffle Houses close ahead of Hurricane Milton

Waffle House has already begun to batten down the hatches, announcing several Florida restaurant closures ahead of Hurricane Milton's predicted landfall.

The Category 5 storm will remain "extremely dangerous" through landfall in Florida, which is expected along the west-central coast of Florida on Wednesday night. Milton is then expected to move east-northeastward across central Florida through Thursday, the National Hurricane Center shared with USA TODAY.

Millions across the region are scrambling to wrap up storm preparations or evacuate from vulnerable areas as Hurricane Milton makes its way from the Gulf of Mexico towards Florida Peninsula. And Waffle House, a restaurant chain known for being open and serving up breakfast 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is no exception.

Waffle House on Tuesday afternoon announced the closures across Florida, imploring residents to stay safe and follow local guidelines since the information is subject to change with little notice due to the potential variations in Milton's path.

Waffle House spokesperson Njeri Boss confirmed the Florida restaurant closures with USA TODAY on Tuesday evening.

"As we stated during Hurricane Helene, our mission remains to keep our Associates out of harm's way. Accordingly, in areas predicted to be hardest hit, we will preemptively close restaurants with a goal of reopening them as soon as it is safe to do so to serve the communities that have there for us over the years."

Waffle House closures in Florida are a 'safety precaution'

Preemptive closures were issued, as a safety precaution, for locations in areas predicted to be "in the path of Hurricane Milton and likely to suffer significant damage, or where mandatory evacuations have been ordered," according to Waffle House.

Waffle House employees will also be following local evacuation procedures.

About 33 Waffle House locations are currently closed and 22 remain open across the state, according to the Waffle House Index posted to X. Waffle House has more than 1,900 locations in 25 states, and most are in the Midwest, according to the company’s website.

What's the Waffle House index?

The Waffle House Index, created by former Florida county emergency manager Craig Fugate, is a way for emergency responders and officials know where to deploy first responders and supplies based on where Waffle House restaurants are ranked and marked.

All Waffle House restaurants are ranked and marked with one of three different colors — green, red, or yellow to signify conditions.

• Green: Fully operational

• Yellow: Limited menu

• Red: Closed

If first responders reach an area and see an open Waffle House marked green, they know the area is safe and they can keep going to find others who need help. Yellow restaurants signify a limited menu and human service agencies were sent to help. If first responders found a Waffle House marked red, help was desperately needed.

Fugate was quoted as saying "If you get there and the Waffle House is closed, that's really bad. That's where you go to work."

Hurricane Milton tracker

Hurricane Milton spaghetti models

Illustrations include an array of forecast tools and models, and not all are created equal. The hurricane center uses only the top four or five highest-performing models to help make its forecasts.

Hurricane Milton livestream

Contributing: Saleen Martin

This story was updated to fix a typo.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Waffle House closes Florida locations before Hurricane Milton arrives