Brace; CNOR An; Canceling Cases As; Cases As; Category; Check; Considerations; Deborah Hughes, RN, BSN, CNOR An; Florida; Friday; High; Hughes, RN, BSN, CNOR An; Hurricane Season; Loss; Make; Monday; National Weather Service; Patients; RN, BSN, CNOR An; Season; Service; Tuesday; Weather Service; Wind-driven; abilities; absolute; access; account; advance; advantage; ahead; anxiety; area; aspects; bags; bank; barreled; blessing; brace; building; business; call; cancel-surgery; care; case; catastrophic; caused; cellular; check; close; communication; concern; cone; contained; cool; cover; cupboard... show all keywordsBrace; CNOR An; Canceling Cases As; Cases As; Category; Check; Considerations; Deborah Hughes, RN, BSN, CNOR An; Florida; Friday; High; Hughes, RN, BSN, CNOR An; Hurricane Season; Loss; Make; Monday; National Weather Service; Patients; RN, BSN, CNOR An; Season; Service; Tuesday; Weather Service; Wind-driven; abilities; absolute; access; account; advance; advantage; ahead; anxiety; area; aspects; bags; bank; barreled; blessing; brace; building; business; call; cancel-surgery; care; case; catastrophic; caused; cellular; check; close; communication; concern; cone; contained; cool; cover; cupboards; cure; damage; days; decide; decision; desks; disaster; drug; elective; electrical; electronic; emergency; employees; enter; equipment; err; evacuate; event; everyone's; expect; expected; expensive; experiences; extra; facility; falls; fatigue; feel; fighting; follow; force; found; free; fuel; generator's; hand; hit; home; homes; hospital; hours; humidity; hurricane; immediately; important; increases; increasingly; inspection; intensified; issues; jeopardy; knocked; land; large; lasers; leaking; levels; light; lines; lose; lost; luxury; made; make; making; managers; medical; members; middle; minds; moisture; mold; monitors; natural; noon; number; open; opened; parts; patient; pay; people; perform; periphery; persevere; phaco; phone; physician-owned; placing; plan; planning; plastic; portable; post-op; pour; power; predicted; prediction; prepare; preparedness; probability; procedures; produced; radical; rains; readily; ready; reasonable; records; recovery; refrigerated; relied; remember; remind; replace; requiring; restored; result; scheduled; sense; service; sheeting; shifted; side; so-called; staff; state; stay; sterile; stick; storm; storms; subsequently; successive; supplies; support; supposed; surgery; surges; surgical; talk; temperatures; term; test; things; till; time; trash; turn; understand; unexpected; unprecedented; up-to-date; utter; walking; warning; water; ways; week; weeks; weighs; work; worst; worst-case
| 
The term "disaster preparedness" is something of an oxymoron, especially in light of Hurrican Katrina. But there are ways we facility managers can brace for natural disasters. Hurricane Season 2004 produced an unprecedented number of catastrophic hurricanes, four of which barreled toward my facility in Cape Coral, Fla. The worst of them, Hurricane Charley, wasn't even supposed to hit us; but within 30 minutes, it had intensified from a Category 2 to a Category 4 storm and made a radical course change.
