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Lessons from Hurricane Rita: Organizing to Provide Medical Care during a Natural Disaster
- Thomas J. Walsh, MD, CAPT, USPHS;
- Susan Orsega, MSN, NP, CDR, USPHS; and
- David Banks, RPh, PhD, CAPT, USPHS
- From the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Rockville, Maryland.
As the hurricane season for 2006 begins, people fear a disaster on the scale of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. Although criticism of government response to those disasters will shape improvements in our system for managing future disasters, many relatively unheralded successes are equally important. We provided disaster relief in our roles as officers in the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS). In this editorial, we discuss some lessons to inform the future.
Following the landfall of Hurricane Katrina on 29 August 2005, the PHS deployed over 2500 Commissioned Corps officers and over 1200 unpaid federal employees across the Gulf Coast region. In addition to their regular jobs at various government agencies, the PHS officers were trained in emergency relief. When the need arose last summer, they received orders to leave their regular jobs and go to the Gulf Coast, where they served as physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, engineers, administrators, environmental health officers, veterinarians, mental health experts, and mortuary experts. They treated people in shelters; triaged during evacuation processing; vaccinated against tetanus, hepatitis A, and influenza; brought safe drinking water; reestablished waste water systems; assessed public buildings for use as schools; evaluated hospitals, shelters, and nursing homes; ensured safe food and pharmaceuticals; treated sick and abandoned animals; and provided comfort and assurance. To provide these services on the scale necessitated by Hurricane Katrina required advance training, planning, and on-site improvisation. Our story, which unfolded in Alexandria, Louisiana, shows what happened on the ground.
As reports of Hurricane Rita emerged, Alexandria prepared for the hurricane itself and for an influx of evacuees from farther south. Because of Alexandria's central location in the state, refugees went there when hospitals closer to home reached capacity after Katrina. A small community recreation center and a former YMCA gymnasium became the evacuation center for these patients. …
