Officials decided against evacuating New Orleans hospitals despite Ida's threat.

[FelineOverlord]

They literally have no place to go. All the surrounding states have also been hit hard.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[femmedem]

1. What an awful, heartbreaking decision to have to make.

I can't imagine being one of the healthcare workers staying behind to try to help them.

[RKP5637]

7. OMG, I hope it's not as horrible as last time. Some of the stories of what happened were

just so horrible.

[PortTack]

16. As a nurse who did flight transfer, the ICU covid patients would die from the transfer

They are just that fragile. The only chance they have is to stay put.

[femmedem]

20. I figured that was the case for many of them.

So terrifying.

[Solly Mack]

2. I was about to say...there is no place to go.

Hospitals are near the breaking point already here in Louisiana.

Sad, tragic, and a lot of it preventable (with masks & vaccines).

[COL Mustard]

6. Solly Mac, Where Are You?

My son is in Baton Rouge. I’m not really worried; the school is at least half a mile from the river and elevated, at least a bit.

Hope you’re safe!

[Solly Mack]

15. Vernon Parish. We're under Tropical Storm warnings as Ida is hitting to the East of us. (so far)

We appear to be far enough inland but last year Hurricane Laura hit us as a category 2 - which was very bad for this rural community.

We get hit if Cameron/Lake Charles gets hit. Straight line with no real barriers...more especially so after Laura. Parts of Lake Charles and a lot of Cameron have still not recovered.

Even Katrina's impact made her way this far inland causing damage and flooding and we're almost 9 hours away from New Orleans.

Thanks! And the same to your son! (staying safe)

[COL Mustard]

28. Looks Like It's Bending To The East A Little

Hopefully that'll be good for you and yours. Looks like it's going to pass right over Baton Rouge still as a major hurricane. The school (Geaux Tigers College) is inland a mile or so and up, so they should be okay. Also the school is familiar with these things so they're prepared as best they can be.

Be safe!

[Solly Mack]

29. Thanks. Yes. It dropped from a warning to an alert and is now a "statement".

Told us to be on the watch for news in the event of changes.

I'll still worry though. There's been enough death and destruction already.

Keeps us posted about your son. All the best!

[vanlassie]

3. We know what happened last time.

And there has been years to make different arrangements to insure the safety of the frailest. 😢

[StarryNite]

5. But COVID throws in another huge obstacle.

[catbyte]

4. I hope it works out for them. I've been tracking Ida all day and it's jogging farther east than

the National Hurricane Center has been predicting which will put NOLA in harm's way.

[Vinca]

8. This is the consequence of having hospitals chock full of Covid patients all over

the region. You'd think people would get vaccinated and take precautions just for this eventuality. Now, if they're injured in the storm, they might die waiting in the parking lot of a hospital if they're lucky enough to get to one.

[sheshe2]

9. I do hope we will not see another...

Last edited Sat Aug 28, 2021, 05:46 PM - Edit history (1)

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital

It describes the events that took place at Memorial Medical Center over five days as thousands of people were trapped in the hospital without power. The triage system put into effect deprioritized critically ill patients for evacuation, and it was later alleged that a number of these patients were euthanized by medical and nursing staff shortly before the entire hospital was evacuated on the fifth day of the crisis. Fink examines the legal and political consequences of the decision to euthanize patients and the ethical issues surrounding euthanasia and health care in disaster scenarios. The book was well received by most critics and won three awards, including a National Book Critics Circle Award for non-fiction.

ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Days_at_Memorial

[liberal_mama]

10. That was one of the most terrifying books I've ever read

What a horrifying story that was.

[sheshe2]

18. I know.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

11. Wasn't the flood what made things really really bad from Katrina?

In particular, swollen levees that failed?

I recall at the time a great deal of talk about gov't flood control projects that were planned but never done ... did any of them ... get done, since then?

[LeftInTX]

21. Storm surge backed up the canals

They did close one canal, but I have no idea if it will make an impact.....
I have no idea what projects have been completed since

[LeftInTX]

24. The canal that they closed was the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet Canal...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River%E2%80%93Gulf_Outlet_Canal

Looks like they have a "surge barrier"...I guess it's like a giant version of the Galveston Seawall...

Fortunately, Ida is not Katrina in terms of intensity.

They are forecasting it to possibly reach cat 4 for a brief time. Hurricanes intensify overnight. Right now it's between a cat 2 and cat 3...(It was 5 MPH short of cat 3 at 4 PM update)

[csziggy]

25. The levees were the flood control - but had not been maintained

Like most of our infrastructure. Most of the flooding in New Orleans proper happened when some levees gave way, some when the pumping stations failed.

My grandfather worked as a civil engineer in New Orleans 1911-1917. He had pictures of levees failures outside of NO and of building pumping stations.

"On May 14, 1912, a "crawfish hole" began to weaken the levee at Hymelia, just upriver from present-day Killona. It quickly grew to a five-hund red-foot wide gap in the levee spilling water across a huge area from Hymelia to as far as Donaldsonville and Thibodaux to behind Gretna." http://www.historyofstcharlesparish.org/index.php/20th-century/first-industrial-era-1901-1950/cultural-changes/1912-disasters/hymelia-crevasse

Putting in one of the pumps:


I've got a lot more pictures of them dredging a canal of some sort and putting in a pump station. If anyone is interested, PM me and I will ssend you the link.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

12. What the hell are they going to do with the people injured in the hurricane?

Suggests a heavy military presence will be required to set up field hospitals.

I'm confident the Biden Administration is keenly aware of that potential massive problem and it will exist a long way up the Mississippi as flooding takes hold.


KY....... ........

[FloridaBlues]

19. DMAT is probably staged close by to help with portable field hospitals ready to go when needed

[Texaswitchy]

13. If power goes out.

Which it will.

People will die in the hospital unless the hospital has back up.

[PortTack]

14. Hospitals always have back up!

[susanr516]

17. There's nowhere left in the South to move them

There are virtually no ICU beds left for adult patients here. Even pediatric ICU beds are almost completely filled in most hospitals.

[pinkstarburst]

22. There is nowhere for them to go

Literally all the ICU beds and pediatric ICU beds across the south are are full. I read an article this morning that said Houston area hospitals have 120 people on a waiting list trying to get an ICU bed. If the worst happens and the hospital loses power and those patients need to be evacuated and transferred elsewhere, there is no other hospital in the surrounding states that has the space to take them.

Get vaccinated.

[Texaswitchy]

23. Exactly

Flooding.

[LeftInTX]

26. Tonight is gonna be an important night...

Ida is expected to pass over a warm eddy, which will result in rapid intensification.....

Now if we get lucky and Ida stays further east, then maybe this won't happen...but unfortunately, hurricanes just seem to be drawn to warm eddies.

Levi said it could possibly undergo an eyewall replacement, which will lower the wind speed, but it actually spreads out the wind field.

This storm is all about storm surge, so a wider wind field, will not help things and make things worse.

&t=707s

At the 7 PM update Ida is a category 2, but rapid intensification can easily change things.

[Lucinda]

27. ❤️ ✿❧🌿❧✿ ❤️