Going beyond the Waffle House index: Using food systems as an indicator of community health and sustainability

FEMA has long used the `Waffle House' index as an indicator of short-term disaster recovery; if Waffle Houses can offer their full menu, then it can be assumed that critical infrastructure is at least somewhat functional. The definition of resilience has evolved from merely coping with and bouncing back from disasters to bouncing forward despite these disasters. Thus, the disaster recovery measures must reflect this notion of resilience. Since food systems require multiple critical infrastructures be functional, they are an ideal indicator of broader community recovery from disasters. This paper demonstrates how food system infrastructure can be used as an indicator of long-term disaster recovery in communities and offers a framework of additional indicators to assess disaster resilience and sustainable development to determine when the community is `bouncing forward' toward food consumption normalcy.