The main hospital in Tampa, Florida, is stockpiling supplies and preparing to stay open, even though it is expected to take a direct hit from the powerful Hurricane Milton.
“We expect to run operationally like we would any other day,” said Tony Venezia, senior director of public safety with Tampa General Hospital. “All we can really do here is be confident in the plans we have in place.”
If there are power outages, that shouldn’t be a problem for the hospital, as it has its own energy plant. It’s a protected power supply more than 30 feet above sea level, which includes boilers, generators and fuel.
“We also have two freshwater wells that are in place,” Venezia said. “If for whatever reason we lose the city water, we’ve got our own water source.”
Tampa General Hospital is the region’s only Level I trauma center.
It has been preparing for the storm for the past week, stockpiling five days worth of food and medical supplies and putting up a flood barrier that completely surrounds the hospital grounds.
“Think about it like it’s a wall around the entire hospital that keeps us safe from potential surge,” said Venezia.
The barrier is meant to handle floodwaters up to 15 feet high. Milton’s surges will be 10 to 15 feet high at their peak, according to forecasts from the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
“We have very large pumps that are strategically placed around the campus, so if there were some kind of breach, we would turn those on and pump the water back out,” Venezia said.
The hospital has deployed the flood barrier every year since 2019.
“We know the capabilities around it, and we’re confident that it will stand up to the challenge once again,” said Venezia.
But as a precaution, no one is working on the hospital’s first floor.
Milton was downgraded to Category 3 status on Wednesday afternoon after spending much of Tuesday as a Category 5 storm.
It is threatening the Tampa Bay area — which has a population of 3.3 million people — and has managed to evade a direct hit from a major hurricane for over 100 years.
Millions have been ordered to evacuate. Counties in the Tampa Bay area are using multiple means of communication to urge people to leave vulnerable areas.
National Hurricane Center forecasters warned Milton is “expected to remain an extremely dangerous major hurricane” when it reaches Florida’s coast.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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