You may be familiar with the Waffle House Index, one of the most reliable indicators of disaster in the United States.
The Waffle House Index offers a "useful metric to determine the severity of a storm and the likely scale of assistance required for disaster recovery," as coined by a former FEMA director:
If you get there and the Waffle House is closed? That's really bad.
So when you see a map like this — well, yes, it's bad:
Milton is looking like a monster, folks. South Florida is going to take a hit on this one.
The storm had not yet made landfall on Wednesday morning but tornadoes were already springing up across the state:
Residents were reporting tornadic activity in the state:
Mass evacuations had already taken place in Tampa and throughout South Florida, though some residents had elected to stay behind:
Stay safe down there, Florida ... it's about to get real.
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