Louisiana hospitals are already crowded with patients due to the coronavirus surge. They are now bracing themselves for a Category 4 hurricane that is expected to hit Louisiana on Sunday.
Jennifer Avegno, New Orleans’ top health official, stated that “once again we find ourselves dealing avec a natural catastrophe in the midst a pandemic.” She urged residents to prepare for both.
Hurricane Ida is expected to hit the state Sunday night along the Louisiana coast. It is expected that it will be a Category 4 hurricane at landfall, with winds of up to 150 mph (240 km/h). As hospitals and intensive care units in hospitals are already crowded with patients from the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (caused by the contagious delta variant virus and low vaccination rates), the storm is expected to hit land at Category 4 strength.
The daily count of new cases increased from a few hundred per day during much of the spring and early Summer to thousands per day by late July. In three prior surges, the number of hospitalizations in the state had peaked around 2,000. However, that number soared to more than 3,000 in august. Saturday’s number was close to 2,700. This is still enough to cause concern in hospitals.
Gov. John Bel Edwards stated that evacuation of hospitals in areas in danger is something that could be considered in other scenarios. However, it’s not practical as many COVID-19 patients are filling beds in Louisiana and other states.
“This is impossible. There is no place for them to be brought. Edwards stated that this is not possible in any state.
Ochsner Health is the state’s largest hospital network. Officials said that they had considered moving some facilities closer to the coast, but it was impossible due to how packed their other hospitals are. About 15 of their hospitals are located in areas that could be affected by Ida. They did however evacuate certain patients who had special medical needs from smaller hospitals located in rural areas to their larger facilities.
Mike Hulefeld, Ochsner Health’s executive vice president and chief operational officer, stated that COVID “has certainly added to the storm.”
The hospital chain claims that it is as prepared as possible. Hulefeld stated that they had ordered supplies for 10 days three days ago to support facilities in Ida-affected areas. Everything has now arrived. Every facility has backup power, which has been tested, and a backup fuel truck. Many hospitals have water wells in case the city water goes out.
Hulefeld stated, “We’re as prepared as we can be.”
Jeff Elder, a doctor and medical director for emergency management at LCMC Health said that six of the six hospitals in the system will be locked down Sunday morning. Staff who would be staying at the hospitals during the storm were expected to arrive Saturday and Sunday morning. They would then sleep at the hospital.
Elder stated that one of the first things hospitals do after storms is to discharge all patients who can leave. Their patient load is much higher than normal due to the pandemic, so they can’t reduce it by as much. He said that the hospitals are more stable since 2005’s hurricane Katrina.
He said, “We’ve learned much since 2005.” To keep infrastructure from flooding, key pieces have been raised. University Medical Center, New Orleans, has a generator that was raised after Katrina. It also has diesel supplies. The first floor does not have any essential services, so flood waters won’t affect anything.
Elder stated that all hospitals within the system have generator backup power. Elder also stated that communication between the hospitals and different levels of government is much easier now.
