By Mary Mayhew
A revised hurricane forecast released in July predicts a very active 2021 Atlantic hurricane season. Researchers predict 20 named storms, including nine hurricanes and four major hurricanes. One of these, Hurricane Elsa, already made its presence known on Florida’s coast. This year is forecast to be the sixth in a row of an above-average number of storms.
For Florida’s hospitals, planning for these storms is paramount, and it occurs year-round, not just during the five months of hurricane season. Hospitals’ plans are intended to avoid patient evacuations as much as is safely possible as well as hospital closure so that the community has a reliable source for care throughout the storm and its aftermath.
Fortunately, hurricanes, unlike other types of disasters, are “expected” or “known” events. They are forecast and, therefore, can be planned for. Every hospital has an emergency plan that governs roles and responsibilities before, during, and after a storm. These plans provide detailed guidance on staffing, security, power redundancies, supplies and medications, equipment, facility maintenance, evacuation and patient transfer contingencies, and coordination with local emergency response, community groups, and possible transfer facilities further inland. Needed supplies range from the routine, like saline, bandages, and medical gases, to the unusual, like antivenom to deal with bites from snakes whose habitats are disrupted by the storm. Importantly, too, emergency plans are practiced and drilled so that when disaster strikes, response can happen quickly and fluidly.
These emergency response plans are designed to be flexible and adaptive to each community’s needs and each locality’s circumstances and are also honed year after year based on real-world experiences managing storms and their impacts.
Emergency response plans are one variable in hospitals’ ability to keep their doors open to continue safely caring for patients during a hurricane. Another variable is physical infrastructure. To avoid closure, hospitals’ buildings have to be able to withstand hurricane-force winds and flooding from heavy rains and coastal surges. Whether constructing a new hospital or retrofitting an older one, investments in infrastructure hardening, flood mitigation, and other building renovations run in the millions, if not billions of dollars.
Despite the heavy costs, hospitals of all sizes from coast to coast are making these infrastructure investments to protect their facilities and, most importantly, their ability to continue serving their communities without interruption.
In South Florida, for example, an assessment in 2000 of a hospital’s resilience to potential storm damage from a hurricane of Category 2 or higher revealed vulnerabilities that could have resulted in the hospital being forced to close or evacuate in the event of a major hurricane. The hospital retrofitted its facilities to enable it to withstand a Category 4 hurricane and winds of up to 200 miles per hour. With the renovation, today, the hospital is wrapped in a hurricane-resistant shell – pre-molded panels of glass fiber-reinforced concrete – and has impact-resistant windows and a reinforced roof.
In Marathon, in the Florida Keys, after Hurricane Irma, a new hospital was built to be able to withstand a Category 5 hurricane and have emergency power lasting up to four days. Beginning in 2005, another hospital upgraded its facility over four years to strengthen the roof, reduce vulnerability to wind and flooding, and protect medical equipment and generators in addition to installing hurricane protective window screening.
From securing emergency generators and security personnel and stockpiling medications and supplies to training staff, running preparedness drills, and transforming the physical infrastructure, the costs for hospitals of hurricane preparedness are numerous and significant. But the costs of failing to prepare are far greater and would leave communities without a trusted source of care, without a port in the storm, when it is needed the most.
Mary Mayhew is President and CEO of the Florida Hospital Association.
