From Deseret News archives:

Katrina survivor gives IH tips on disaster-planning

Published: Sunday, Sept. 16, 2007 12:16 a.m. MDT
 |  E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT + - 
In a large-scale catastrophe, assume your communications systems won't work, your inventory of emergency supplies is inadequate, individual facility plans won't apply and your government will be overwhelmed.

If you know those things going in, you may survive, John Finn told health-care providers and administrators at Intermountain Healthcare's Healthy Communities Conference recently in Salt Lake City.

Finn, president and chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Hospital Council of New Orleans, saw firsthand the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — first from the floodwaters and then from lack of adequate preparedness and response, particularly by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"I apologize that I'm going to be using politically incorrect words," he said, "particularly the 'F' word: FEMA. It's the dirtiest word we have in New Orleans."

For starters, Finn said, local disaster-planning focused on the wrong disaster. They spent endless hours and resources figuring out how to handle a chemical disaster and were gearing up to tackle biological threats. They were completely unprepared for Katrina's devastation. But the lessons they learned are applicable to any large-scale disaster, he said.

Story continues below
Hospitals all had individual facility disaster plans, but they failed to take into account an entire city and beyond that had no services, no fire departments, no transportation or communication and more. They had the recommended three-day emergency inventories, which were not enough.

Landline and most cell phone services were out, with the exception of Nextel, which by chance had one cell tower standing. Even the "special" radios failed in the first few hours. He counseled local health providers to make sure their hospitals don't all rely on one phone service, since it's impossible to guess which ones will stand and which ones will fall in a disaster. Every hospital should recruit a ham radio operator if they don't have one on staff, because that may be a lifesaver, he said.

The hospitals that fared best were those that were part of large systems and could call on sister facilities outside of the area for help, he said. The larger hospitals, once stabilized, tried to help the smaller, independent hospitals.

But the conditions they all faced were dire — no food, no water, few medications and 130-degree temperatures in the facilities.

Comments

You can be the first to comment on this story.

Image

John Finn

previousnext

Latest comments

As good as TCU is, I think Utah has a great chance. One thing I admire about...

South Summit loves stampeds so bring it on because it is going to be a long...

What showdown? This will be a TCU beat-down of the mighty #16 in the BCS...

Editorial: 'Immigrant' children needy

Health care should not depend on being lucky enough to be able to get decent...

7:56am. There are about 3 billion children in the world who need help. Are...

5A preview: Lone Peak at Hunter

Y IS THERE A PICTURE OF LP'S RECIEVER ON HERE WHEN THEY LOST.....LOL

Cougars' execution flawless

Funny how the level of "execution" goes up against teams with poor talent....

Cougars crush hapless Cowboys

All MWC football fans need to get behind TCU, it's the only way we can hope...

12 high schools ready for 'The Turf'

Several schools have turf now...so it is not the Turf. Playing in a...

Lambert surprisingly tops news

Two weeks ago BYU quit against TCU. When was the last time Utah quit when...

Advertisements
Advertisement