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We’ve Always Known We Have
a Great Team Here at SCRMC.

South Central Regional Medical Center saw incredible growth, change, and success during the course of 2005. The greatest challenge of the year occurred on August 29th – the day Hurricane Katrina hit Mississippi. As a hospital, it was our duty to hold fast and serve our community during this critical time. But as people, our staff went above and beyond responsibilities and job descriptions – meeting this disaster with courage, conviction, and compassion. “We’ve always known we have a great team here at South Central, but in the face of Katrina, we discovered we have an incredibly strong family,” says Doug Higginbotham, Executive Director, SCRMC. “Everyone dug in and rose to the occasion – without sleep, without water, and without being asked.”

Employees pitched in to help with patient transport, distribute supplies, and to carry buckets of water throughout the medical center to flush toilets. Food, wisdom, patience, blankets, and floor space were shared freely. There was no lapse in care or kindness. And no complaints. With much appreciated assistance from our friends at area businesses, industries, and organizations, South Central served as a beacon of hope and healing for the entire community.

We feel the events following Hurricane Katrina best illustrate the achievements, capabilities, and commitment of South Central, as both a hospital and a community pillar. In the next few pages, we offer a timeline of those dramatic days. Katrina affected millions, certainly many worse than us in south central Mississippi. Countless Mississippians and Americans responded to the tragedy with incredible generosity and bravery. Still, Katrina was a true test of our role as a health care provider. This is how we responded.

By the afternoon of Friday, August 26, it became apparent Katrina posed a significant threat to our community. E-mail and text messages went out to our management team, alerting them to be on call over the weekend. As a team, we had been through the drill before. But no disaster plan could have adequately prepared us for Katrina. Patient transfers from Slidell began on Sunday morning. And at 2:45 a.m., Monday, the management team met at the medical center. Early on, Higginbotham told the management team, “We must take care of our employees. If we take care of our employees, they will take care of our patients.” That statement established a clear vision for the organization the day of and the days that followed Hurricane Katrina. As the result of the events that occurred during those dramatic days, the South Central family is closer than it has ever been.

As the winds and rain whipped into a torrential crescendo Monday, we discovered several leaks in the facility. Water streamed into the halls, surgery, OB, ICU, the cafeteria, kitchen, doctors’ lounge, and administrative offices. Some patient-room windows were blown out. Considering the velocity of the winds, the building held up well. Even so, the screech and whine of drills were soon heard throughout the facility as workers began replacing windowpanes with steel plates. The power went out at 12:40 p.m. After an eerily silent seven seconds, our new generators kicked on – restoring full power to all circuits. They continued to run without interruption for 39 hours, burning approximately 6,000 gallons of diesel.

During the storm, we miraculously maintained local phone communication with our nursing home but lost all other lines of communication. We relied on the statewide emergency radio network for patient transfers. Thanks to an exceptionally tech-savvy individual, we were able to regain a signal from one satellite phone. On day two, a resourceful pharmacy technician procured a phone line from an area cellular service provider – which allowed us to utilize Mississippi Power’s functioning cellular network.

The South Central management team and physicians were updated twice a day in organized briefings to make sure all needs were addressed. As each need arose, the group was quick to make a decision.

Although we maintained power and communication, we were without the most crucial resource of all – water. And during the course of 60 hours, we learned just how much we depend on water flowing through our pipes. We had no cooling system or fire suppression; no way to flush toilets, wash dishes, wash laundry; we couldn’t run many lab tests, our sterilizers, or medical vacuum system – not to mention quench our thirsts. Through the Red Cross, members of the South Central team were allowed into Wal-Mart in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. Foraging with flashlights, they were able to secure pallets of water, paper cups, paper plates, napkins, and plastic utensils, as well as rice and pasta.

Later Tuesday morning, the Calhoun and Powers Volunteer Fire Departments began delivering 3,500 gallons of water every three hours. This was enough to run the cooling towers and chillers. We also built a makeshift canvas reservoir in the rear parking lot. The reservoir water was earmarked for toilets. A bucket brigade, more affectionately known as the “potty patrol,” transported water, gallon by gallon, to keep patient toilets operational. Ice pick-up points were provided throughout the community by community agencies, but South Central employees were unable to leave work to secure ice for their families. South Central purchased hundreds of bags of ice for medical center employees. South Central personnel distributed the ice to their fellow coworkers.

We typically keep a three days’ laundry supply on hand, and after almost three days without water, there was a tremendous pile up. When partial water pressure was restored on Wednesday, the laundry department and several South Central employees and volunteers cleaned 2,200 pounds of linen within six hours.

Due to sterilization concerns, all scheduled surgeries were postponed. Nevertheless, several emergency surgeries, including C-sections, led to a critical shortage of sterile supplies. Until water and steam power was restored, we could not run our sterilizers. At one point, we had only enough sterile equipment left to perform one surgery.

In the aftermath of the storm, the Salvation Army’s special needs shelter required assistance. The special needs shelter had been set up to house oxygen-dependent patients who lost the power required to run their oxygen concentrators. But the shelter was too small, with inadequate air circulation, for the number of patients displaced by Katrina. We responded by relocating them to The Children’s Academy, South Central’s day care facility, as soon as the facility regained power. While these individuals were glad to regain a more normal environment with an ample oxygen supply, power, water, and food, our first-floor conference rooms at the medical center were completely overrun with children. More than 100 children of medical center employees were taken care of 24 hours a day in our conference rooms during and after the storm. Our staff slept on pallets on the floor with these children, providing comfort and care to each one so their parents could continue to work at the medical center.

As soon as medical center personnel received word that St. John’s Episcopal Church had regained power, they worked with church staff and volunteers to transfer the oxygen-dependent patients to the church so the children could be relocated to the day care facility. Throughout the crisis, Jones County Medical Supply helped us ensure the oxygen supply needs of these patients were met. South Central Regional Medical Center also provided supplies, medicine, and medical support to the Magnolia Center which had been set up as a Red Cross shelter which housed 1,026 registered evacuees at its peak. South Central physicians and nurse practitioners set up a makeshift clinic at the center to meet basic medical needs.

In addition to the Magnolia Center, South Central offered assistance to Glade Baptist Church. The church had been housing evacuees from the Milne Asylum For Destitute Orphan Girls in New Orleans. South Central provided medical supplies and medical equipment and set up Physical Therapy, Activities Therapy and Speech Therapy.

Our Emergency Department soon found itself the sole source of local health care, as all other area clinics were closed. Hundreds of patients were seen – many in need of dialysis and oxygen. Patient volume remained high for several days. But thanks to our tireless medical team, with the assistance of volunteer medical staff and nurse practitioners from the area, the overflow was treated efficiently and compassionately. As the days wore on and fuel supplies dwindled, ensuring our staff members were able to travel back and forth from their homes to the hospital became a significant problem. The only stations pumping gas were reserved for emergency vehicles. Thanks to the cooperation of Tom Saucier, the medical center temporarily secured a local gas station where employees were provided vouchers to secure fuel. South Central employees pumped gas for hours, filling tank after tank to ensure that their coworkers could continue to respond to needs at the medical center.

Our food suppliers were also hit by the fuel crisis and shipments were uncertain. Compounding the food shortage, we were also serving record numbers of meals in our cafeteria. We were the only source of nourishment for many in the area. Generously, the Jones County School District offered their food supplies, which fed patients, visitors, and Mississippi Power linemen for two days, until our vendors were able to resume deliveries.

Another essential supply line cut off by Hurricane Katrina was cash flow. Our payroll is handled electronically. Without the Internet, our system is inoperable. Paper checks were no good. Even if our staff members had the fuel to make it to their banks, there was no guarantee those banks would be open. So payroll was transferred to disk and driven to Jackson, where it could be processed. Local Bancorp South branches also agreed to cash employee checks up to $250, so essential purchases could be made.

South Central employees continued to work hard during the days that followed Katrina, but special needs arose. They needed clean uniforms. Within hours, South Central personnel set up the “South Central Washateria” in the back parking lot. Employees called a special Washateria phone line to schedule a time to wash their clothes. Shifts and schedules were out the window. South Central employees worked around the clock to care for those in need of medical care. At one point, nearly 100 children were being looked after. The hospital also served as a hotel for essential staff and their families – all of whom generously put our patients well ahead of any crises at home. Numerous thank-you notes from South Central employees poured in to the administrative offices at South Central thanking the management team for addressing their basic needs during and after the storm.

Through it all, South Central physicians and employees cared for everyone in need. Never have we been more proud of our South Central family of physicians, employees, and volunteers. We were tired. We were scruffy. We were shaken. But we held strong – to Jones County and to each other. That is what we’re here for. And that is what we’ll do. Time and again if we’re called upon to do so.