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Prepare for flooding before it happens

Hospital Safety Insider, July 17, 2014

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In an ideal world, hospitals work best when there isn't water pouring into the first-floor lobby of the facility. But as many seasoned hospital safety officers will tell you, Mother Nature often will test even the most prepared.

Hospital officials in Colorado were put to literally the test of a lifetime on September 12, 2013, when the Boulder area was hit by what some officials are calling a 1,000-year flood. Heavy rain combined with snowmelt from surrounding mountains combined to create a maelstrom that took out roads and bridges and literally split individual towns and cities into two.

A year after major flooding events in Colorado and Illinois, the ground has dried up but officials concede that it's only a matter of time before it happens again. In fact, in late May, hospitals in Colorado were gearing up for what they feared could be a repeat of last September as rains were forecast that could have melted an entire winter's worth of snowpack in the mountains.

Although the flooding this time around was thankfully not what they feared, safety officials were understandably willing to share the lessons they learned with their colleagues in other parts of the country.

This is an excerpt from an article in the August issue of Briefings on Hospital Safety. Visit here to log in or subscribe.

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