Hurricane Irma: A Case Study in HCI Hurricane Preparedness & Response

Hurricane Irma: A Case Study in HCI Hurricane Preparedness & Response

The week prior to Hurricane Irma’s land fall was a very busy week for many Floridians.  When your home office is in South Florida and you have diagnostic laboratories in Tampa, Gainesville, Starke, Live Oak, and Daytona, HCI gets even busier.  To demonstrate our commitment to our patients, business partners, and employees we have put together a brief timeline of what exactly goes into preparing for a natural disaster like Hurricane Irma, as well as what it takes to get sites up and running again within a timely manner.

Monday, September 4 Labor Day

• Day off? Not for the HCI management team. Conversations were had on contacting each of the site administrators aimed at instilling a sense of confidence that HCI is proactively responding to their needs before they reach out to us.

Tuesday, September 5

• This just so happened to correspond with our HCI quarterly meeting, which brought managers together to focus in a concerted series of efforts.
• Direct emails from our CEO and President, Bob Stilley, went out to outline our response to equipment and employee safety, along with contingency plans in case of a more direct hit at any or all of our sites. During this time, Hurricane Irma was a Category 4 storm with many potential paths for effecting the state of Florida.

Wednesday, September 6

• Mid-level managers called employees at each of the Florida sites to run through the site-specific protocols required to secure each laboratory.

Thursday, September 7

• Hurricane Irma threatens the home office. We send emails out to site administrators and employees to insure they have each of the management teams personal and business mobile numbers and pack up and transport all of the vital data and tools required to keep HCI running while on the road.
• Some mangers fly home to DC and the rest begin their evacuation north.

Friday September 8

• It was business as usual at each of the sites, except for all of the precautions taken to ensure that if there was power, but no EMR, that we would have good old fashioned pieces of paper to tell us which patients needed what and when.
• Final calls and site visits were made to each site as necessary to secure them.
• Radiopharmaceutical suppliers were contacted to learn of potential delivery disruptions.

Saturday September 9

• Managers remained in contact with the mobile home office to give final reports on each site.

Sunday September 10

• Final calls to specific employees in likely path zones were made to verify safety.

Monday September 11

• Hurricane Irma made landfall. Limited cell service and widespread power outages.
• Sites closed.
• Called site administrators to verify plans for opening the next day and organizing skeleton crews for those more effected.
• Verified radiopharmaceutical suppliers would make site specific deliveries.

Tuesday September 12

• Some sites were business as usual and other more effected sites were open in a limited capacity and others were closed.
• Managers travelled to more effected sites to perform physical site evaluations.
• Employees and site administrators were called to verify safety and a return to business as usual.
• The mobile home office returned to South Florida to open the doors and assess damage.

Wednesday September 13

• Resumed business as usual at each site throughout Florida.

HCI remained in constant contact with each site administrator and each employee stationed at each site throughout the entire emergency response process to instill confidence that their respective diagnostic laboratories are in capable hands.  At HCI it is our endeavor to anticipate the needs of each of our business partners before they have the time to even consider writing us an email or calling us.  It is our pleasure to hear them say, ‘Wow, you’ve thought of everything.  Thank you for making my life that much easier.’