BY Staci Saint-Preux, Industry Manager, StormGeo
It has been a relatively quiet hurricane season – so far. Traditionally the peak of the Atlantic tropical season is September 10th, with two-thirds of activity occurring between August 20th and October 10th. As we move into this period, meteorologists at StormGeo are continuing to see signs of an active hurricane season along the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Seaboard.
When hurricanes make landfall, emergency managers, facility directors, and executives across the healthcare organization must be prepared to respond to possible impacts and plan for worst-case scenarios to ensure the needs of patients and staff are met.
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To help healthcare administrations prepare for potential hurricane impacts, here are tips on how to solve the five major challenges healthcare leaders must prepare for when tropical cyclones make landfall.
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1. Patient and Employee Safety
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The safety of your patients and employees is your top priority. Make sure you stay current on any changes in the weather, have a plan for ensuring the safety of staff and patients, and use accurate weather information to alert employees of any changing conditions.
Real-time, site-specific storm updates enable departments to coordinate to ensure patients’ and employees’ well-being and provide a deeper understanding of the current weather conditions around your specific facility. This is especially helpful in the event of a possible evacuation.
In a hurricane scenario with massive flooding, the concern is not necessarily the safety of the patients due to rising waters but whether the facility has enough resources – food, medicine, linens, water – to meet patients’ needs while marooned from vendors. During Hurricane Harvey, there were stories of hospitals needing to evacuate because of damage to the water systems and of hospitals that needed to evacuate but were unable to complete the evacuation because rescuers could not access the facility due to rising water.
Harvey is a unique case due to the unprecedented amount of rainfall that occurred but having a clear understanding of the timing of a storm and the potential for flooding caused by river rise or rainfall allows your teams to schedule advanced shipments from vendors, pinpoint the optimal timing for an evacuation or push back when an evacuation might not be necessary.
2. Employee Shortage
In the event of severe weather, there is always the possibility that some employees won’t be able to make it to work due to blocked roads, downed power lines, flooded streets, or damage to their personal living structures.
In situations like this, reliable weather data is instrumental, as it allows you to keep track of the weather continuously and plan for all potential scenarios. Organizational leaders can track the forecasted arrival of hurricane-force winds and monitor the situation as the storm moves across the area. Arrangements can be made for staff changes to occur before weather conditions worsen and ensure enough staff members are onsite to ride out the storm.
Encourage staff to prepare their homes and families before the storm arrives. When critical staff knows their personal lives are taken care of, they are better able to focus on what needs to be done to ensure the safety of patients during these high-stress periods.
3. Patient Surge
Storms may not directly harm your facility but can affect you in other ways. Your hospital may need to take on evacuated patients or serve a higher volume of regional patients. If your facility was spared from damage but is close to an impacted region, your patient volume will likely increase.
Assessing your surge capacity before extreme weather occurs is crucial, as your doctors, nurses, and administrative staff members could be inundated with complex, severe injuries. In cases of major flooding, for example, individuals forced to swim through dirty water will need penicillin and antibiotics to treat infections, and some might also be hypothermic. Understanding what medicines and materials you’ll need in different scenarios allow you to respond more quickly and efficiently.
4. Loss of Infrastructure and Communications
During hurricanes, community residents often seek shelter at hospitals, even when they don’t require medical attention. Hospitals are viewed as a source of safety, electricity, and supplies. This means ensuring the physical structures are fortified and that communications lines remain open.
In a city prone to flooding, as Houston is, it is critical to prepare for impacts from high wind speeds and high-water accumulations. Make sure buildings and structures are fortified and secured from potential debris. The most important step in making decisions regarding infrastructure is knowing the thresholds for each facility – what wind speeds are your buildings rated for and what level of water rise the facility can safely withstand.
Power and water are typically the most critical infrastructure concerns. Hospitals must have 96 hours of emergency generator capacity on hand. Facility engineers should perform routine checks on main and backup generators and ensure there are enough switch boxes and fuel to keep the facility running regardless of any issues with the main grid. If there is a possibility that water access could be limited, water trucks should be secured to ensure access to fresh water.
Power also affects your ability to communicate. Make sure you build redundancies into your communications systems. Mass notification systems ensure all employees and partners receive critical event information and alerts. Have backup satellite phones ready to use and distribute in case you lose power and phone lines go down.
5. Loss of Essential Services
During times of crisis, supplies may be short for a while, especially if your vendors are also affected. A hospital is legally obligated to ensure that 96 hours’ worth of materials is always on hand, just as with power generators. This includes medical devices, linens, pharmaceuticals, and other essentials.
Plan ahead and ensure emergency supply providers are prepared to deliver supplies before and after a storm. You may want to request early drop shipments when you expect a hurricane and stock up on medications and staples like water and gas for generators. Determine which supplies are most critical, so you can arrange for delivery in advance and ensure you aren’t scrambling during an emergency.
In recent years, global health emergencies like Covid and now monkeypox have added significant stress to healthcare systems. Many facilities are already dealing with patient surges, employee shortages, and supply chain challenges, making it even more critical to prepare for the impacts of severe weather.
Massive storms can have widespread and lasting impacts on hospitals, with staff members having both to protect patients and prepare for storm-related trauma. By better understanding the typical challenges that arise, you can implement smarter contingency plans and prepare for even the most demanding emergency.