ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. , Oct.
17, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In the days and hours leading up to Hurricane Milton, St. Anthony's Hospital teams had looked at wind and surge, staffing and supplies. As the Category 3 storm landed 50 miles to the south late Wednesday, Oct.
9 , the teams prepared to hunker down and ride out the storm. Little did they realize the challenges still to come to keep safe the hospital's 361 patients and 800 team members and physicians. A series of events – interrupted water service; uncertain sewage capacity; offline generators; and an internet failure that shut down communication, medical records and computer systems – would keep the team working through the night to ensure patient safety and keep the hospital operating.
"It's one thing to suffer any one of the events on an individual basis," said Scott Smith , St. Anthony's president since 2016. "But to have one type of failure followed 30 minutes, an hour later by another failure, followed by 30 minutes an hour later, another failure, and each one of those being significant was really a challenge for the team.
" Planning for Hurricane Milton, the second hurricane in less than two weeks to hit the region, had begun the weekend before at BayCare. By Monday, Oct. 7 , the entire health system moved to Code Green to prepare for the storm.
BayCare began evacuation procedures at 8:45 a.m. on Oct.
7 at Morton Plant North Bay Hospital in New Port Richey , which sits in a mandatory evacuation zone. BayCare also ma.
