GALVESTON — Michael Megna has been keeping a close eye on the events unfolding in the communities hit by Hurricane Katrina.
“They are living out our worst nightmare,” he said. “The pictures coming out of New Orleans are just chilling.”
Megna, the man responsible for putting together a hurricane plan for the University of Texas Medical Branch, said he had seen the images of hospitals with all of the windows broken out and draperies flapping in the breeze.
“I never would have expected that kind of damage to those buildings,” he said.
Even before the storm, Megna said, the medical center had begun to rethink its hurricane strategy.
“We have always said that UTMB would be here regardless,” he said. “We’ve really now considered very seriously some planning that would relocate at least some of our patients.”
Megna’s primary role at UTMB is as the administrator of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice hospital. In some respects, he said, dealing with that population of patients will be easier than dealing with the hospital at large.
“For one thing, it’s easy to stop the in-flow of patients,” he said. “All we have to do is tell the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to stop sending them.”
And as for moving patients back to prison?
“TDCJ will transport anybody we say is ready,” Megna said.
There are challenges, though.
“There’s no other facility like this one anywhere in the country,” Megna said. “This facility was specifically designed with the security measures necessary to house prisoners.”
Still, he said, there are other hospitals accustomed to dealing with inmates.
“Just because of the geography of the prison system, there are a number of hospitals that have dealt with prisoners on a fairly routine basis,” he said.
Megna said he hoped to have a revised hurricane plan in place in time for next year’s hurricane season. Even this year, though, the approach likely will be different than it would have been a year ago.
“Our goal is to get as many people out of harm’s way as possible,” Megna said.
That’s not a complete departure from past practice.
“Our approach has always been to downsize the hospital as much as we can,” he said. “We would always discharge as many patients as we could.”
Now, the hospital will simply expand that approach, contacting nearby hospitals to see whether they could accept evacuating patients. It would then work with the state to arrange transportation.
“The state has a lot of resources available,” Megna said.
Galveston County officials plan to start making decisions about an evacuation as much as 72 hours before the predicted arrival of tropical storm-force winds. Megna’s staff will be involved in those discussions and will be trying to make decisions in that same time frame.
The challenge, of course, is that weather forecasting remains an inexact science. The National Weather Service says it can come within 30 miles of pinpointing where a storm will come ashore, but Megna noted that 30 miles could make a lot of difference.
If a storm comes in at High Island, UTMB winds up on the so-called clean side, and damage is likely to be less severe. If it comes in at San Luis Pass, though, UTMB moves to the dirty side, and the situation could be dire.
“I don’t gamble for a reason,” Megna said. “My luck just isn’t that good.”
Emergency management officials acknowledge there are risks involved in making the decision to evacuate early. They might clear out the county only to see the storm make a last-minute turn.
“It’s the better-safe-than-sorry scenario,” Megna said.
Such an approach is more difficult, though, when you’re talking about critically ill patients.
“These are people who are already at risk,” Megna said.
Just how many patients the medical center will be able to evacuate, he said, will depend on many factors.
“The big unknown for us is whether there would be nearby hospitals with available beds,” he said.
In addition, he said, there are the conditions of the patients to be considered.
“There likely would be some critically ill patients who we probably couldn’t move,” Megna said.
Still, he can’t escape the visions of patients on life support being moved out of hospitals in the aftermath of Katrina.
“It is imminently easier to do the transfer and relocation of patients on a day like today,” Megna said, “than on a day after the storm when we’re coping with storm damage and a lack of electricity.”
