The authors famous that the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Well being Care Middle in New Orleans, constructed to switch a hospital that had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, served as a great mannequin for the way coastal hospitals may enhance their resilience to hurricanes. The ability options backup gasoline provides and on-site sewage remedy, and its crucial mechanical and electrical tools are no less than 20 toes above the 100-year floodplain, or the realm that might be inundated by a extreme flood.
Researchers emphasised, although, that hospital preparedness shouldn’t cease at making particular person hospitals extra resilient. Even when hospital buildings themselves aren’t flooded, the roads resulting in them should still be, successfully chopping off a practical hospital from sufferers who’re making an attempt to succeed in it, Dr. Bernstein stated.
In 18 of the metropolitan areas, no less than half of the roads inside a mile of the hospitals had been susceptible to flooding from a Class 2 storm, the researchers stated. Hospitals can’t be “a resilient island in a fragile ocean,” stated Auroop R. Ganguly, a geosciences and civil engineering professor at Northeastern College who was not concerned within the examine.
Dr. Bernstein additionally emphasised that well being care suppliers in some main cities, like New York, Boston and Philadelphia, may face a lot greater threat than anticipated. Due to the place the hospitals are positioned and the numbers of hospital beds relative to the populations they serve, when a storm does hit, there will likely be “extra individuals trying to find fewer beds,” he stated.
The examine contributes to a greater understanding of find out how to characterize the injury {that a} hurricane can inflict on the communities it hits, stated Kristie L. Ebi, a professor within the College of Washington’s Middle for Well being and the International Setting who wasn’t concerned within the examine.
For instance, there’s typically a notion that a lot of a hurricane’s injury comes from excessive winds, Dr. Ebi stated, however in actuality, it’s the flooding that has a a lot larger impact on life and property, each throughout the storm and in its aftermath.