As Hurricane Milton bears down on Florida, the staff at Sarasota Memorial Hospital is getting ready.
The facility, in Sarasota, about an hour south of Tampa, is in the path of the hurricane but isn’t evacuating because it’s both the largest and the safest hospital in the area.
“We’re probably on the highest ground in Sarasota and we’re the largest hospital,” said David Verinder, the president and CEO of the Sarasota Memorial Health Care System. “We just have way too many patients to take care of.”
Verinder estimates that there could be 4,000 to 5,000 people — patients and staff members — on site at their its locations when the hurricane hits. The main hospital, Sarasota Memorial, is the largest.
To prepare, the hospital system has ordered enough food and water for at least seven days.
“We have linens, you know, everything that you’ll need,” he said. “We can’t guarantee that we’ll have anybody be able to make any deliveries through the weekend. So we’re at least planning for seven days.”
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Hospital staff members will work in two main shifts.
The A team, which includes a couple hundred physicians, will stay at the hospital through the duration of the storm, Verinder said. “They’re going to be prepared to sleep and rotate shifts for three days.”
Once the storm has passed, the B team will come in. That’s what makes Verinder nervous.
“We hope they’re safe,” he said. “We hope they’re safe and that they can come in and relieve the A team. And if they can’t get through the roads, the downed power lines, the A team will continue to work until they’re relieved.”
All the while, the hospital will offer child care and a pet shelter so that staff members can bring their kids and pets, he said.
At AdventHealth Tampa Emergency Department, Dr. Alex Waldman, 35, is part of the B team. Waldman, who is the associate medical director of the emergency department, will come in after the storm passes to relieve the A team workers.
He knows how challenging that can be; he also worked the B team shift during Hurricane Helene.
“If we’re running into issues, as we did, unfortunately with Helene, where some people are flooded in, can’t make it to work, then we need to be a little bit nimble and make sure that we have our shifts filled,” said Waldman, who is serving as the director of the storm in the emergency department. “But we have backup providers and surge providers all prepared, should they be needed.”
Farther south, in Fort Myers, the A team at Lee Health hospitals, part of the Southwest Florida Hospital System, reported to their locations on Tuesday, a spokesperson said.
The hospitals are staying open for patients, though elective procedures scheduled between Tuesday and Thursday have been rescheduled, the spokesperson said.
In one facility, the Skilled Nursing Facility, which is located in a low-lying area, about 100 patients have been evacuated out of an abundance of caution, the spokesperson said.
One Lee Health employee, Monica Collins, the director of respiratory therapy at Golisano Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida, sent her family to Miami ahead of the storm.
Collins went through Hurricane Ian two years ago and understands the toll these storms can take on a community.
Her house is located in a part of Fort Myers known to flood, and she said she’s worried that she won’t have a house after the storm, a fear shared by much of her staff.
During Ian, while Collins was working at the hospital, she lost communication with her family.
“Not knowing what happened, what was happening to them, was extremely stressful,” she said.
This time, with her family in Miami, she can fully commit to her job working in the hospital’s emergency operations command center while also checking in with her staff members, making sure they have everything they need.
Waldman, from Tampa, has a wife and two young kids, a 3-year-old and a 5-month-old. In addition, his two college-age cousins and their parents will stay with his family. He’s preparing his house for the storm and bolting the hurricane shutters.
“I’m not a lifelong Floridian, but I’ve been in Florida six years now, and I think that’s something that makes this one feel a little bit different,” Waldman said. “The rapid succession of the back-to-back storms and then just this trajectory for the second storm really coming in and looking like it’s going to make a direct impact. You know, it’s concerning.”
