Hospitals are no strangers to disasters. They receive the victims of these natural and man-made catastrophes on a regular basis. Caring for patients under such circumstances is difficult enough, but imagine how much more difficult it would be if the hospital itself became the victim of a natural disaster.

Several Houston hospitals faced that challenge during recent flooding caused by Tropical Storm Allison, with several hospitals declaring internal disasters at the same time.

The storm, which dumped as much as 20 inches in some areas in a 24-hour period and killed at least 22 people, led to extensive flooding in the Texas Medical Center, home to more than 40 health care facilities, including hospitals, medical schools and nursing schools.

Houston health care providers still are struggling to recover from the storm’s ravages, which led to the closing of two hospitals, the closing of four others to new admissions and the evacuation of hundreds of patients during and after the storm.

Later, other patients were transferred to hospitals outside the medical center as workers drained submerged basements and tried to determine damage to facilities, medical equipment, research projects and lab animals.

Hardest-hit by the flooding, which began the night of June 8, was Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Texas Medical Center. The facility lost all power when floodwaters submerged its basement and forced the evacuation of patients down darkened stairwells.

Critical care patients at Memorial Hermann were moved to the city’s other Level 1 trauma center, Ben Taub General Hospital, while other patients were transferred to outlying hospitals. During the height of the flooding, LifeFlight helicopters landed and took off on a continual basis from Memorial Hermann, carrying patients to other hospitals, while ambulances lined up outside to evacuate less-critical patients.

Memorial Hermann expects to be closed for as long as 30 days.

Tina Foster, manager of public relations for the Harris County Hospital District, which operates Ben Taub, said the rising waters led to nursing shortages when the flooding began and nurses couldn’t get to work. Other nurses who had tried to go home were forced to return to work. Some nurses took on extra patients to allow nurses who had been there for several hours to rest, Foster said.

Ben Taub is the only hospital in the Texas Medical Center with emergency generators on risers above ground, she pointed out, a lesson that other hospitals can learn from to avoid losing power in the next catastrophe.

Laura Rodriguez, RN, nurse manager of the trauma/surgical intensive care unit at Ben Taub, arrived at work June 9 in a delivery truck driven by her husband. "It was chaotic, but things were running the way they should have been running," she said.

The staff encountered problems with monitors and finding enough pumps to deliver IV fluids and medications. They also ran into supply shortages and had problems dispensing medications to patients because pharmacists were unable to get to work.

Nicole Rubin, assistant vice president of communications for The Methodist Hospital, said the floodwater destroyed 182,000 square feet of space, as well as the hospital’s pharmacy, three MRIs, nuclear cameras, food preparation areas and millions of dollars worth of supplies.

During the height of the storm, the hospital lost its elevators, air conditioning and water, and had limited lighting from emergency generators. Although the hospital did not go into evacuation mode, doctors chose to transfer many patients to other hospitals.

Pamela Klauer Triolo, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, senior vice president and chief nursing executive for The Methodist Hospital, said the facility had 690 patients when the storm began. Less than a week later, that number had dropped to 73. "So you can tell we have discharged or transferred a lot of patients depending on what the physician’s preference was," she said.

Rosemary Luquire, Ph.D., MSN, RN, senior vice president for patient care at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, said the facilities workers at St. Luke’s warned the medical staff that rising floodwaters would render the hospital without power.

The staff used that time to evacuate 45 to 50 of the hospital’s most critically ill patients to a nearby medical tower connected to St. Luke’s via an enclosed skybridge. Twenty-four patients were evacuated to other hospitals and 20 rehab patients were transferred to a nearby rehabilitation center.

Like other hospitals hit hard by the flooding, St. Luke’s canceled all surgeries and elective procedures for a week or more and decided not to admit new patients except in emergency situations, Luquire said. The flooding, however, will affect health care long after the water has receded and hospitals are running full tilt again.

"Some of the faculty lost years of work and the students have lost everything they’ve done to date," said Sandra Hanneman, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, associate dean for research in the school of nursing at the University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center.

Flooding destroyed millions of dollars of federally funded research, as well as years of work by doctorate students, Hanneman said, and could delay for years development of new drugs and technology used in the treatment of heart disease, cancer and other maladies.

The disaster has re-emphasized the importance of backing up data and keeping copies in several locations, Hanneman said. For instance, she keeps a copy on a Zip disk outside her office in the school of nursing and another copy in her home.

She said technology developed by NASA would be used to try to recover waterlogged papers.

More than 30,000 lab animals drowned in the flooding, including nearly 80 monkeys and 35 dogs. Most of the animals lost were genetically engineered mice and rats worth thousands of dollars, some specially bred to express a certain type of disease.