Hospitals in the Houston metropolitan area are beginning to reopen after some were shut down during Tropical Storm Harvey, according to an August 30 report on NPR's "All Things Considered" program.
As of Wednesday afternoon, about two dozen hospitals in the Houston area remained closed, after several were still under threat from flooding from reservoirs close by. But more were reopening as the floodwaters recede, according to an interview by program host Kelly McEvers with Darrell Pile, CEO of the Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council.
Pile noted that during the storm, phone lines "became inundated" at the region's catastrophic medical operations center from incoming calls, ranging from a person who needed dialysis to a request for 50 wheelchairs from a shelter. Social media was a huge help in organizing relief efforts, he said.
Some hospitals had to be evacuated, but Pile said that hospitals were able to electronically notify the operations center regarding the number and type of beds they had available, as well as whether the receiving hospital was in a safe area so no patient had to be moved twice. One hospital did have to be evacuated when it ran out of food, but that facility has since reopened and the evacuation did not affect patient care, he said.
Pile also noted that some precautions taken after Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 paid off during Harvey. For example, a tunnel system between facilities in the Texas Medical Center system flooded in the earlier storm, but "submarine-type doorways" installed since then prevented a recurrence of the flooding.
