New Hospital Built with Hurricanes in Mind

The new All Children's Hospital was being built when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. Katrina taught some painful lessons about what hospitals need to do in order to prepare to operate without water and electricity -- and how to safely evacuate patients and staff when necessary. 

Those lessons were not lost on All Children's Hospital, and we have incorporated the latest in hurricane-resistant technology to insure that our new hospital will be ready to serve our patients in the event of a major disaster. When our new hospital opens, the building will have some remarkable features:

• Thanks to our new Central Energy Plant, the hospital will be able to run without outside power for up to 21 days -- at full power, not only emergency power!
• A well will provide a potable water supply that is enough to sustain the hospital in case of an emergency impacting the city water supply.
• The windows are rated to withstand winds up to 130 MPH.
• The mechanical areas in the hospital are located on the 4th floor, to protect them from any possible flooding.

The new hospital, in short, has been "designed to operate as an island" if that becomes necessary. Several media outlets have noticed, too -- the new All Children's Hospital has been featured in an article about protection from catastrophic events in Consulting-Specifying Engineer Magazine, an engineering trade publication, and locally Bay News 9 produced a feature about the hurricane preparedness of the new hospital. We've also produced our own video containing views from inside the new hospital and details about the storm-readiness of our campus: