Emergency preparedness for Bowling County healthcare facilities and power outages

Energy Supply Systems Infrastructure -- Identify Key Considerations When Assessing the Vulnerability of the Following Energy Supply Systems:

Electric power supply and distribution

The Bowling County EMT and its healthcare facilities do not specifically state in their manual that they have backup generators at the main hospital facility. Backup generators would be necessary to give assistance to patients that need constant, critical care in the form of electrically-powered devices such as ventilators. The EMT crew would need to know what nearby hospitals had generators to provide additional services in an emergency situation, should there be a power outage and the normal point-of-contact hospital was not operational.

For example, during Hurricane Katrina, flood waters rendered the city hospital's normal generators nonfunctional, causing excessively high indoor temperatures (Curiel 2006). Floodwaters disabled even wheeled generators which could only offer minimal power for hospital equipment, anyway (Bovender & Carey 2006). In New Orleans, patients died because they could not be transported from the ravaged city hospitals.

There should be backup access to medical records, either through paper files or battery-operated laptops to give necessary information about patients during transfers. Radio communication between EMT personnel is currently available and exists as an alternative to cell phone contact, should there be a disruption in service. Coordinating a response with hospitals far enough away from disaster areas, in light of Katrina-like situations, would enable helicopters to transport high-risk patients away from catastrophic situations. This seems like the best way of minimizing casualties in the event of a total devastation of healthcare facilities and a complete power outage, given the lessons of Katrina.

Natural gas supply

Loss of access to gas can result in the loss of hot running water, and the ability to boil water for sanitary purposes. Before an emergency, bottled, fresh water should be kept on hand for drinking and other functions requiring bacteria-free water. Food that can be prepared without heating and boiling is required to be kept on hand. All efforts should be made to ensure conditions such as toilets remain sanitary and water remains running to maximize sanitation and minimize water usage and need for boiling.