At Least 170 U.S. Hospitals At Risk Of Floods

Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, Tennessee submerged
in floodwaters during Hurricane Helene last year.
Researchers say 170 U.S. hospitals are at risk
for flooding, some of them not in flood plains. 

A new study by KFF Health News has determined that 170 hospitals throughout the United States are vulnerable to flooding. 

The hospitals, totaling nearly 30,000 patient beds, face risks from significant and dangerous flooding, based on data from Fathom, a company considered a leader in flood simulation. 

Evacuating a hospital during a flood or other disaster is no easy feat. Picture trying to get critically ill people, hooked up to medical equipment out of a crumbling hospital in a hurry. So you can see why this is such a scary issue. 

None of the 170 hospitals in the list were in Vermont. For some reason here in the Green Mountain State, we tend to build hospitals on hills. 

According to KFF Health News:

"Much of this risk to hospitals is not captured by flood maps issues by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which have served as the nations de facto tool for flood estimation for half a century, despite being incomplete and sometimes decades out of date.

As FEMA maps have become divorced from the reality of a changing climate, private companies like Fathom have filled the gap with simulations of future floods. But many of their predictions are behind a paywall, leaving the public mostly reliant on free, significantly limited government maps."

Of the 170 hospitals described by KFF Health News as being at risk, one third are in places FEMA has not defined as flood hazard areas. 

The United States has already experienced tragedies and near misses from hospital flooding. 

During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, flooding at the New Orleans Memorial Medical Center left 45 people dead, including some patients. 

Last year, during Hurricane Helene, helicopters had to rescue dozens of people from the roof of Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, Tennessee. Luckily, in that instance, nobody died.

The risk of flooded hospitals comes as the Trump administration slashed federal agencies like NOAA and FEMA that forecast and respond to extreme weather.

FEMA just responded with a quote they always use when asked about their function and the effects of cutbacks and fired employees. 

They just said criticism of FEMA is just "bureaucrats who presided over decades of inefficiency." It's their boilerplate now. 

As climate change keeps taking hold, storms will continue to become stronger and stronger, dumping more and more rain and causing bigger and bigger floods.

That's a particular concern in  Charleston, West Virginia, where a single storm could flood five of the city's six hospitals at once, along with many of the city's schools, churches and fire departments.

As it is, floods routinely crash down out of the mountains and hollows in West Virginia, so Charleston is vulnerable. Wheeling, West Virginia served as a for example earlier this year.  In June a flash flood in and around Wheeling killed at least six people. 

Of course, closing a hospital in a flood plain and building a new one elsewhere is extremely expensive. 

You can try flood proofing a hospital, which is also expensive, but maybe doable.

As KFF Health News reports, an example is the former Coney Island Hospital in New York. It was badly flooded in Superstorm Sandy in 2012. 

The hospital reinvented itself as the Ruth Bader Ginsburg hospital, after a $923 million reconstruction project that included a four-foot flood wall and patient areas in elevated areas above the first floor. 

The hospital hasn't really been tested yet in a flood though. 

There's MUCH more from KFF Health News regarding these potentially unsafe hospitals. Click here to read more.