As storm veterans, Florida nurses knew the drill when Hurricane Katrina neared, and they breathed a grateful sigh when the Category 1 storm crossed South Florida Aug. 25-26, leaving behind minimal damage. Now they’re determined to aid Gulf Coast areas devastated by a storm that three days later came ashore as a Category 4.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” says Sacred Heart Health System AirHeart Flight Nurse Tim Keohane, RN, EMT/P, on his return to Pensacola from evacuating patients at Tulane University Hospital and Clinic in New Orleans. “I’ve never seen that much devastation. This is a life-changing event.”

Hurricanes aren’t new to Keohane. He’s lived through many, and his Navarre Beach home sustained serious damage during Ivan. “For me, it’s a way to give back and help a neighbor,” Keohane says. “I will never forget what those people did to help us.”

AirHeart flew multiple trips to assist in evacuating Tulane and to bring medical supplies and food, water, ice, flashlights, and a satellite phone for nurses and doctors still at the facility. The helicopter landed on the roof of Tulane’s parking garage and was met by smiling nurses, quick with a hug and a thank-you. The Tulane nurses asked the transport team to autograph their scrubs as a memento of their shared experience.

Nurses’ efforts impressive

“The staff is coping incredibly well,” says Keohane, calling the nurses’ actions impressive. One RN told Keohane she hadn’t yet heard from her husband and didn’t know how he had fared — or their home. Yet with every evacuee, the nurse focused on her patients, reassuring them and acting as if everything in her life were OK.

What Keohane witnessed touched the seasoned flight nurse, making him feel proud to be part of the nursing team and gratified to put his skills to the test. Yet frustration filled his heart as his aircraft flew over stranded New Orleans residents who waved for help, knowing he couldn’t save everyone. Sacred Heart planned to start evacuating Tulane’s employees and physicians after all the patients had been safely moved.

Miami Children’s Hospital LifeFlight staff and helicopter left Aug. 31 to help Children’s Hospital of New Orleans evacuate 100 pediatric patients and their families to unaffected hospitals in the region. What’s more, the pediatric hospital sent a Learjet with a spare crew and scrubs, plus hydration fluids and other supplies. The Miami hospital also is accepting patients from New Orleans.

Jackie Gonzalez, RN, MSN, ARNP, CNAA, BC, Miami Children’s senior vice president and chief nursing officer, remembers Hurricane Andrew and how nurses from Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children & Women in Orlando came to her facility’s aid. She knows from sad experience what ravaged Gulf Coast hospitals need.

“It was the right thing to do,” Gonzalez says. “We have a special affinity for understanding — not the degree of crisis, but we know what it means to face something like such a disaster.”

Nurses at West Florida Hospital in Pensacola share the desire to help and repay communities to the west that helped them so much after Hurricanes Dennis and Ivan. A team of nurses from West Florida attempted to reach a Mobile, Ala., HCA staging area, but were turned back by gridlocked traffic. They’ll try again. Mean­while, West Florida has accepted 12 adult medical-surgical patients from Tulane.

“We’re geared up to assist our HCA sister facility, Tulane University Hospital, while not disrupting our patient load,” says Carol Saxton, RN, MSN, senior vice president of patient care services and CNO.

Gulf Coast Medical Center in Panama City has treated several patients who left Louisiana and Mississippi before the storm.

Tenet Healthcare evacuated three of its Gulf Coast hospitals. Florida facilities did not receive any of the transfers.

Hospitals throughout Florida have volunteered to take evacuated patients. Besides Miami Children’s, South Florida hospitals taking patients include Aventura Hospital & Medical Center, Baptist Hospital of Miami, Hialeah Hospital, Jackson Memorial Hospital’s trauma unit, Memorial Hospital Pembroke, Memorial Hospital West, Palmetto General Hospital, South Miami Hospital, and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Miami.

Twenty nurses from Memorial Health­care System have volunteered to relieve RNs at Gulf Coast hospitals, as the latter did for Florida facilities during the 2004 hurricane season. “Everybody knows how important it is,” says Rebecca Caschette, RN, MS, chief nursing officer at Memorial Pembroke.

South Florida’s brush with Katrina

After Katrina moved through South Florida, people with injuries and respiratory distress flooded Memorial Pem­broke’s ED, and fragile elders waited out the storm at the hospital. Nurses volunteered for extra shifts. “Our staff was quick to get on board,” says Caschette. “There was no question about responsibilities.”

Likewise at Homestead Hospital, off-duty nurses pitched in wherever needed. Administrators had not anticipated the storm’s fury.

Heavy rains leaked into the ED, flooding the nursing station and forcing staff to move patients, equipment, and ED operations to a transitional stay unit for 18 hours. The hospital lost power and water, but generators kept it going.

Gail Gordon, RN, MSN, vice president and chief nursing officer, learned about the damage from her CEO and headed to Homestead Hospital when the winds died down in the early morning hours of Aug. 26.

“No care was compromised,” Gordon says. “Staff pulled together and did what was best for the patients.”

Homestead Hospital physicians stayed and helped in areas outside their specialty. Imaging was down, but most lab services continued. People kept arriving at the facility, seeking care for lacerations, burns, and other injuries. The hospital remained full with backups in the ED.

Jackson South Community Hospital in Miami also had some flooding during Katrina and operated without power for more than 24 hours. Generators shut down after water came in, and the communication system died. The hospital transferred a few of its more complex patients, but continued caring for the others. “It was a night of total ingenuity,” says Regina Deiters, RN, chief nursing officer. “We had clever, determined, brave people here that night.”

Ambulatory homebound community residents, most in need of oxygen or nebulizer treatments, flocked to Jackson Memorial Hospital. The Miami facility never lost power, continuing to care for those patients until their homes had electricity restored.

During the storm, Baptist Hospital of Miami delivered six babies, including one named Katrina. The hospital operated on generator power most of the night, experiencing some leaks in patient care areas and taking on five inches of water in the main dining room.

Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale saw its share of poststorm cleanup injuries in the ED. Emergency generators kept Holy Cross operating smoothly. The hospital had activated its hurricane plan, stocking extra generator fuel, food, and medical supplies.

Steve Seeley, RN, BA, executive director of inpatient services at Holy Cross, says staff complimented administration on being well-organized. Nurses were assigned sleeping quarters in patient and treatment rooms to make sure they got needed rest.

“Nurses are very resilient people and take it with a good sense of humor,” Seeley says. “These things show the teamwork nurses have. You don’t hear any complaining.”

In response to power failures, Holy Cross moved residents and their professional caregivers from its skilled nursing facility, Mercy Manor Nursing Home, to an empty floor of the hospital and brought in many of its home health patients.

Mercy Hospital, Miami, accepted two special-needs residents from the Miami-Dade County Office of Emergency Management and operated successfully on generator power, following its hurricane plan. Mercy shuttered windows and positioned sandbags, but still had some water intrusion.

Kindred Hospital–South Florida operated on backup generators, and ventilators never missed a breath thanks to battery packs, says James C. Ransone, RN, MSN, PhD, ARNP, chief clinical officer and nurse executive. Without air conditioning, humidity condensed on the relatively cool floor tiles. One nurse slipped and fell, sustaining a back injury.

Facilities in the Keys fared reasonably well. Mariners Hospital in Tavernier lost no power, and surgeries proceeded as scheduled. Fishermen’s Hospital in Marathon had some water intrusion in administrative areas and the OR, but was back to normal within days.

North Broward Hospital District facilities suffered minor leakage around windows and rooftop doors. The district activated its hurricane plan, discharging as many patients as possible and rescheduling some elective procedures. Its EDs treated patients with lacerations as well as injuries from motor vehicle mishaps.

“We were prepared and very lucky, compared with what the storm turned into,” says Jeanne Eckes-Roper, RN, MBA, the district’s director of emergency preparedness. “We now have staff deployed with a DMAT [disaster medical assistance team] to Alabama.”

Lee Memorial Health System in Fort Myers has four of its nurses in Louisiana with another DMAT team. The state has established a website for nurses to volunteer in the affected areas. Dozens have their bags packed, ready to respond.

“All of us are watching the news in stunned silence and thinking we were so lucky,” says Caschette. “We’ll do whatever we can to help.”

	How to help
	The Florida Department of Health is recruiting medical personnel to volunteer in devastated Gulf Coast areas. Visit the Florida Medical Volunteer Registry to sign up — http://disasterhelp.net/medical

American Red Cross

Salvation Army

National Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster

USA Freedom Corps

Department of Health and Human Services