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1oregonobsessionz
Used to be, one never heard of hospitals evacuating as a result of disasters. Over the past few years, quite a few hospitals and medical centers have been forced to evacuate. I thought it would be interesting to link some of the stories here. I will start with the most recent, and will add more as I find time.
UCLA Olive View – Evacuated 11/15/08 due to wildfire
On November 15, 2008, wildfires and a power outage forced the UCLA Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar, CA to evacuate approximately 27 patients, including 18 babies from neonatal intensive care, 4 critical care patients, and 5 adults on ventilators. Medical staff had to use hand-operated ventilators during the evacuation.
Approximately 200 patients were in the hospital at the time of the fire. The fire jumped the I-210 Freeway near the medical center, destroyed some buildings on the hospital campus, and burned through power lines (apparently above ground) that serve the hospital. News reports do not entirely agree, but it appears that some emergency generators (presumably with a limited fuel supply) started when the power failed, but an additional generator unit in the hospital’s central utility building did not start because of a fuel pump failure. An inspector from L.A. County had witnessed a test start of the larger generator within the past week.
(I am not familiar with this facility, but I will go out on a limb and guess that the fuel pump for the larger generator was not connected to the emergency power supply. Once the city power went out, they were unable to pump fuel to operate the on-site generator. Sounds stupid, but I have seen this more times than I can count.)
Los Angeles Times story with video and map
Brief NPR interview with the assistant hospital administrator
Best Syndication article with maps and YouTube video
ABC News story
Olive View is a relatively new hospital, opened in 1987. This hospital was a replacement for an earlier hospital that collapsed in the 1971 San Fernando (Sylmar) quake, just 6 months after it opened.
Historic USGS photos from the 1971 San Fernando quake
UCLA Olive View – Evacuated 11/15/08 due to wildfire
On November 15, 2008, wildfires and a power outage forced the UCLA Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar, CA to evacuate approximately 27 patients, including 18 babies from neonatal intensive care, 4 critical care patients, and 5 adults on ventilators. Medical staff had to use hand-operated ventilators during the evacuation.
Approximately 200 patients were in the hospital at the time of the fire. The fire jumped the I-210 Freeway near the medical center, destroyed some buildings on the hospital campus, and burned through power lines (apparently above ground) that serve the hospital. News reports do not entirely agree, but it appears that some emergency generators (presumably with a limited fuel supply) started when the power failed, but an additional generator unit in the hospital’s central utility building did not start because of a fuel pump failure. An inspector from L.A. County had witnessed a test start of the larger generator within the past week.
(I am not familiar with this facility, but I will go out on a limb and guess that the fuel pump for the larger generator was not connected to the emergency power supply. Once the city power went out, they were unable to pump fuel to operate the on-site generator. Sounds stupid, but I have seen this more times than I can count.)
Los Angeles Times story with video and map
Brief NPR interview with the assistant hospital administrator
Best Syndication article with maps and YouTube video
ABC News story
Olive View is a relatively new hospital, opened in 1987. This hospital was a replacement for an earlier hospital that collapsed in the 1971 San Fernando (Sylmar) quake, just 6 months after it opened.
Historic USGS photos from the 1971 San Fernando quake
2GirlFromIpanema
Elbe river flood in August 2002 (hitting about every town along the river and its tributaries from Prague to Hamburg, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbehochwasser_2002):
Evacuation of ca. 3000 patients from city hospitals in Dresden
Dresden was first hit by a flash flood of the Weisseritz creek on 12 August (http://www.ray-and-the-rockets.de/flut/images/09.jpg), and then by rising waters in the Elbe river, culminating in the highest-ever flood at 9.40m (normal level at 2m-something).
Various hospitals around the city had been fighting the rising waters, moving patients around in the city, until it was decided on 15 August, that the hospitals were to be evacuated, since conditions were getting increasingly problematic (flooded facilities, power loss). An cat. 3 alert was sent to various Red Cross state organisations around Germany. The Bavarian Red Cross has a detailed review of the whole process online (PDF, with pictures, but only in German, start on page 7: http://www.bbk.bund.de/cln_027/nn_402296/SharedDocs/Publikationen/A_20Elbhochwas.... The Bavarians went on the road to Dresden with huge convois of ambulances and aux. vehicles.
The biggest challenges:
-Putting up a field hospital at terminal 2 of Dresden Airport.
-Evacuation to hospitals outside the city, using Luftwaffe transport planes to airlift critical patients to hospitals as far as Hamburg, ambulances for shorter distances and non-critical patients.
-Putting up a tent city for 3,000 people in Pirna.
I moved away from Dresden in January 2002, so of course I was on the telephone to see if my friends were OK. Everyone was filling sandbags or helping neighbours to rescue their furniture. One of my friends lived next door to a hospital 200m from the river, and walked over to offer his help (his house was on a high spot). He said the whole evacuation went well and was well-organised, from his point of view as a "gurney pusher".
My personal recollection: Whomever I was talking to during 15/16 August, you could always hear helicopters and ambulances through the telephone... -eerie.
News reports:
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/aug/15/world/fg-floods15
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dresden-under-threat--as-elbe-ris...
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990DE6D6153DF934A2575BC0A9649C8B6...
Pictures:
http://www.ray-and-the-rockets.de/flut/
http://www.khdn.de/index.php?entry_id=111 (diary of City Hospital Dresden-Neustadt for the flood days)
Evaluation:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1123931
http://pdm.medicine.wisc.edu/22-1%20PDFs/Kamedo%20Report%2088.pdf
Evacuation of ca. 3000 patients from city hospitals in Dresden
Dresden was first hit by a flash flood of the Weisseritz creek on 12 August (http://www.ray-and-the-rockets.de/flut/images/09.jpg), and then by rising waters in the Elbe river, culminating in the highest-ever flood at 9.40m (normal level at 2m-something).
Various hospitals around the city had been fighting the rising waters, moving patients around in the city, until it was decided on 15 August, that the hospitals were to be evacuated, since conditions were getting increasingly problematic (flooded facilities, power loss). An cat. 3 alert was sent to various Red Cross state organisations around Germany. The Bavarian Red Cross has a detailed review of the whole process online (PDF, with pictures, but only in German, start on page 7: http://www.bbk.bund.de/cln_027/nn_402296/SharedDocs/Publikationen/A_20Elbhochwas.... The Bavarians went on the road to Dresden with huge convois of ambulances and aux. vehicles.
The biggest challenges:
-Putting up a field hospital at terminal 2 of Dresden Airport.
-Evacuation to hospitals outside the city, using Luftwaffe transport planes to airlift critical patients to hospitals as far as Hamburg, ambulances for shorter distances and non-critical patients.
-Putting up a tent city for 3,000 people in Pirna.
I moved away from Dresden in January 2002, so of course I was on the telephone to see if my friends were OK. Everyone was filling sandbags or helping neighbours to rescue their furniture. One of my friends lived next door to a hospital 200m from the river, and walked over to offer his help (his house was on a high spot). He said the whole evacuation went well and was well-organised, from his point of view as a "gurney pusher".
My personal recollection: Whomever I was talking to during 15/16 August, you could always hear helicopters and ambulances through the telephone... -eerie.
News reports:
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/aug/15/world/fg-floods15
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dresden-under-threat--as-elbe-ris...
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990DE6D6153DF934A2575BC0A9649C8B6...
Pictures:
http://www.ray-and-the-rockets.de/flut/
http://www.khdn.de/index.php?entry_id=111 (diary of City Hospital Dresden-Neustadt for the flood days)
Evaluation:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1123931
http://pdm.medicine.wisc.edu/22-1%20PDFs/Kamedo%20Report%2088.pdf
3oregonobsessionz
>2 GirlFromIpanema:
Thanks, that KAMEDO report is most useful, and I managed to flounder through the Red Cross report. Do you know whether the evacuations had been planned in advance?
Prior to the disastrous outcomes of Hurricane Katrina, hospitals in the US used to focus most of their emergency planning on events that originate outside their premises. It is only in the past 3 years or so that they are trying to address disasters that affect them on site. Hospitals in flood plains seem to be in a particular state of denial about the conditions they would face during a flood (loss of utilities, loss of key departments and supplies if located below grade, horrific sanitation problems, impaired transportaton, etc.)
I have encountered one psychiatric hospital with a very robust flood evacuation plan. They are at high risk from a flood control levee that is very near and is poorly maintained. In the event of levee failure, they would have less than 20 minutes to respond. They actually reinforced the attic floor in each building section, stored all of their emergency supplies up there, and conduct regular drills in which everyone - staff and patients alike - climbs up to the attic to wait for the all-clear.
Thanks, that KAMEDO report is most useful, and I managed to flounder through the Red Cross report. Do you know whether the evacuations had been planned in advance?
Prior to the disastrous outcomes of Hurricane Katrina, hospitals in the US used to focus most of their emergency planning on events that originate outside their premises. It is only in the past 3 years or so that they are trying to address disasters that affect them on site. Hospitals in flood plains seem to be in a particular state of denial about the conditions they would face during a flood (loss of utilities, loss of key departments and supplies if located below grade, horrific sanitation problems, impaired transportaton, etc.)
I have encountered one psychiatric hospital with a very robust flood evacuation plan. They are at high risk from a flood control levee that is very near and is poorly maintained. In the event of levee failure, they would have less than 20 minutes to respond. They actually reinforced the attic floor in each building section, stored all of their emergency supplies up there, and conduct regular drills in which everyone - staff and patients alike - climbs up to the attic to wait for the all-clear.
4GirlFromIpanema
"Do you know whether the evacuations had been planned in advance? "
I did a bit of research into that. From what I read, there were evacuation plans for certain quarters of the city, as well as for certain hospitals, but the height of the flood came rather unexpected and poorly predicted by meteorological and geological services (a 1000-year flood, not seen in known history, highest measured level ever). The hospitals had evacuation plans, but certain things to be done in the massive two-day evacuation were planned ad-hoc.
There is a huge, 250pp evaluation report on the flood and the disaster management (the "Kirchbachbericht" http://www.google.de/search?q=Kirchbach+report+flood ) --but it's only available in German, it seems...
I did a bit of research into that. From what I read, there were evacuation plans for certain quarters of the city, as well as for certain hospitals, but the height of the flood came rather unexpected and poorly predicted by meteorological and geological services (a 1000-year flood, not seen in known history, highest measured level ever). The hospitals had evacuation plans, but certain things to be done in the massive two-day evacuation were planned ad-hoc.
There is a huge, 250pp evaluation report on the flood and the disaster management (the "Kirchbachbericht" http://www.google.de/search?q=Kirchbach+report+flood ) --but it's only available in German, it seems...
5debherter
Maybe it's not so much that they are now forced to evacuate as it is that they are better able to evacuate. Getting the patients out of there safely has to be better than huddling in the building, worrying about how close the fire is, and having to depend on generators to provide power.
Thanks for all the great links!
Thanks for all the great links!
