Hospitals across Florida are coming back online after evacuating patients, closing facilities and canceling surgeries ahead of Hurricane Milton.
The category 3 hurricane made landfall near Sarasota, Florida, on Wednesday evening and was expected to be one of the most powerful in Florida’s history. At least 10 storm-related deaths have been reported and the death toll is still expected to rise.
However, even amid widespread destruction from storm surge, tornadoes, hurricane force winds and torrential rain, officials said the worst-case scenario was averted because the storm weakened as it arrived.
“Preparing for Hurricane Milton was an incredible effort by the entire team and a true test of our resources,” said John Couris, president and CEO of Tampa general hospital, in a statement. Tampa general is the region’s only high-level trauma center. It stayed open through the storm.
“But it ensured we could continue to provide exceptional care for our patients in a high-quality, safe and uninterrupted environment before, during and after the storm,” said Couris.
Milton exploded into a category 5 hurricane early in the week with a path that was predicted to rake across the Florida peninsula from Tampa Bay in the west to the beaches of Volusia county in the east.
Milton arrived less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene became the worst storm to hit Tampa Bay in a century. With predictions that Milton could be the “storm of the century”, Floridians took heed and prepared for it with a sense of urgency uncommon among the state’s weather-worn residents. Millions of Floridians evacuated before the storm, fleeing on highways I-75 and I-4.
Healthcare facilities in the storm’s path also prepared urgently. Officials in Florida said 212 healthcare facilities evacuated before the storm hit, including 10 hospitals, two emergency rooms, 115 assisted living facilities and 50 nursing homes, among others.
Tampa general erected its “aquafence”, an impermeable barrier that surrounds its main campus on Davis Islands near Tampa Bay, and withstood the storm. The hospital also had five days of food, water, linens and other supplies stockpiled.
Nevertheless, satellite branches of the hospital system remained closed after the storm. One Tampa general hospital emergency room in Tampa and another in Brandon are expected to reopen on Thursday evening. Normal operations for the system are expected to resume on Friday.
AdventHealth, another chain that runs hospitals in the Tampa Bay area, said all its facilities experienced only “minor water intrusion”, and that all facilities except for one in northern Pinellas county remained open. That facility, in Tarpon Springs, was evacuated ahead of the storm.
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HCA Healthcare, a for-profit company that owns dozens of hospitals across Florida, said it evacuated more than 400 patients from evacuation zones to affiliates throughout the state.
Another 235 patients were evacuated from an HCA location in Largo, Florida, after a nearby lake flooded into the facility’s basement, affecting power in part of the hospital. Other HCA locations around Tampa Bay – in Pasadena, Largo, Englewood and Tampa – all remain closed. HCA Florida Fawcett hospital in Port Charlotte reopened on Thursday.
In Sarasota, near where the hurricane made landfall, two hospitals remained open through the storm caring for more than 1,000 patients, but urgent care centers and outpatient sites across the region are still being assessed.
In the storm’s wake, more than 3 million people lost electricity, and officials have urged residents to stay in their homes as many roads are still blocked by debris and flooding. The storm dumped 18in of rain on St Petersburg.