Hospitals in Coastal Cities Risk Flooding Even in ‘Weak’ Hurricanes, Study Finds

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 a way coastal hospitals might enhance their resilience to hurricanes. The power options backup gas provides and on-site sewage remedy, and its important mechanical and electrical gear are a minimum of 20 ft above the 100-year floodplain, or the world that will 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 are usually not flooded, the roads resulting in them should still be, successfully chopping off a practical hospital from sufferers who’re attempting to achieve it, Dr. Bernstein stated.

In 18 of the metropolitan areas, a minimum of half of the roads inside a mile of the hospitals had been prone 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 research.

Dr. Bernstein additionally emphasised that well being care suppliers in some main cities, like New York, Boston and Philadelphia, would possibly 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 can be “extra individuals looking for fewer beds,” he stated.

The research contributes to a greater understanding of how you can characterize the harm {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 World Surroundings who wasn’t concerned within the research.

For instance, there’s usually a notion that a lot of a hurricane’s harm comes from excessive winds, Dr. Ebi stated, however in actuality, it’s the flooding that has a a lot greater impact on life and property, each in the course of the storm and in its aftermath.