America moment: being forced to rely on a burger company’s app to find out where power outages are 
Oh, and of course we can not forget that said burger company is using this massive natural disaster/tragedy as an opportunity to do Brand Twitter™ PR and marketing in the replies to the original tweet!
Texans are for small government and independence; so when a hurricane comes through they rely on the Whataburger app for power outage information, HEB disaster trailers for access to sugar water, and Joel Osteen not locking the doors to his megachurch for flooding shelter.
Getting shuffled single file into my local Buc-ee's ©️ relief center
fucking Joel Osteen
how is that rat faced fuck still alive after that?
can't believe nobody murdered him and his wife
Without the free market, companies like Whataburger would not have incentive to innovate and track power outages as a way to drive users to their service, and if a company doesn't have incentive to do something, it is literally impossible to do it. Checkmate commies
Jesus, you can't look up where power outages are occurring? In BC, our power company is a SOE and there's a website you can look at that shows every power outage in the province. Areas with outages are overlaid on Google maps, which means you can see down to individual streets where outages are occurring, and each outage has information appended to it, like the cause of the outage, time since outage, whether teams are actively repairing it, etc.
And in Burgerland, you get the information from burger company.
There are almost 300 registered energy providers in Texas. Each provider has rates and plans that change daily.
late ed: For reference, Texas has 254 counties.
This would be grounds for a military coup in a more civilized country.
I can in my state, but we only have like 3 power utility companies. My guess is that you can't see a map of Houston because there are dozens of energy providers due to the lack of regulation. Any map would be incomplete and not as good as the Whataburger app...
One day, burger technology will become so advanced that it starts to replace existing technology companies as the predominant driver of innovation.
And in Burgerland, you get the information from burger company.
Texas is just especially stupid about it.
I'm in Ohio, which is trying to become the Florida of the Midwest, and my neighborhood is part of an electrical co-op. They have a great website with real-time tracking of outages and a text message service for outage reporting and updates.
It's not all co-ops here. AEP does electrical service a lot of the nearby towns, and from what I've heard, outage reporting and tracking is more effort and doesn't update in real-time. But at least they do have a map and an online outage submission form, so that's something.
I feel very badly for our comrades in places like Texas. Ohio sucks badly enough, but jfc, Texas really does it up.
Jesus, you can't look up where power outages are occurring?
[Chorus]
You don't tug on Superman's cape
You don't spit into the wind
You don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger
And you don't mess 'round with TexasI found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Don't worry comrade, someday Canadian utilities & burger places will be just as good as ours
Stolen honor from Waffle House
Context
The metric is unofficially used by FEMA to inform disaster response.
[...]
The Waffle House Index is a metric named after the ubiquitous Southern US restaurant chain Waffle House known for its 24-hour, 365-day service. Since this restaurant always remains open, it has given rise to an informal but useful metric to determine the severity of a storm and the likely scale of assistance required for disaster recovery. It was coined by former administrator Craig Fugate of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Once again, this will be spinned as
“See? I TOLD YOU the private sector can be trusted!”
if it becomes a thing they'll start charging for access to the map
Unsurprisingly, the open Whataburgers do a decent job outlining the wealthiest parts of the city as well
Thinking back on how Twitter limited Japan’s disaster warning account during a live disaster
The Waffle House index warns us about the severity of storms - but what about the Whataburger index? Other countries don’t even have access to the advanced metrics we got here in murica
Waffle House index - severity of storms
Big Mac Index - PPP differences
Stripper Index - possibilities of recession
For a second I thought that was a Wonderwoman Burger joint or something
