ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Hurricane season begins June 1, and the team at Johns Hopkins All Children\u2019s Hospital says they\u2019re working to make sure they\u2019re ready.<\/p>\n
The hospital isn\u2019t just preparing for this upcoming storm season, but for many more to come. Chief Operating Officer Justin Olsen said All Children\u2019s is investing $37 million in hardening its facility against future severe weather.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a high number of critical care beds with very sick children. Really, there\u2019s not a lot of places we could evacuate them if we needed to. So, we have to make sure that we are absolutely prepared,\u201d said Olsen.<\/p>\n
Olsen told Spectrum News the hospital suffered $1.5 million in damages following Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Larreneka Wells was part of the hospital\u2019s ride out team for both, meaning she stayed at work through the storms.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was kind of like a ghost town. There were people here, but everyone was kind of quiet, looking out the window, trying to see what was going on,\u201d said Wells, a registered nurse on the pediatric general surgery floor.<\/p>\n
Wells said she\u2019s a lifelong Floridian who\u2019s used to what hurricane season can bring.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut being a nurse and actually having to be here during ride out, I thought it was kind of like an honor being here during our patients\u2019 scariest times,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Wells said she spent five days at the hospital during Milton and four during Helene. She said patient care continued seamlessly.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike, the power. I didn\u2019t even recognize that we lost power. If we did, it was probably for, like, this quick,\u201d Wells said, snapping her fingers.<\/p>\n
Olsen said Milton had a bigger impact on the hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe lost a lot of really core infrastructure,\u201d he said. \u201cWe talk about losing sewer and water and power, all at the same time. We have redundant systems to ensure we can continue to operate in that environment, but really it did identify some weaknesses that we had that we\u2019ve been trying to address since those storms,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Some projects are already complete, like the $4.5 million re-roofing. Others are still underway. As part of an expansion project, a $14 million relocation of the steam line is taking place. Olsen said it\u2019s a critical piece of infrastructure that provides sterilization, heats water, and regulates the temperature. He said it went down during Milton. Upcoming improvements, some of which are still waiting on funding from FEMA, include hardening doors against high winds, high water flood barriers, and an additional well in case water service is lost.<\/p>\n
Wells said hearing about the efforts to make the hospital more resilient gives her some extra peace of mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hurricane season is scary for everyone, especially with this new one coming, but I love how prepared Johns Hopkins was,\u201d said Wells.<\/p>\n
Olsen said the goal is to improve on that to make sure All Children\u2019s can provide care 24 hours a day, seven days a week – in any weather. He said it could take another year or two to complete the improvements, depending on when funding from FEMA comes through and how long the bid process takes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Hurricane season begins June 1, and the team at Johns Hopkins All Children\u2019s Hospital…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1011,274,1190,115,2718,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,835],"class_list":["post-277901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-top-stories","tag-human-interest","tag-news","tag-sarah-blazonis","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}