On Sunday August 28, 2005, the National Weather Service advised that a category 5
hurricane (Katrina) would make landfall on the United States gulf coast centered at
the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama shorelines. That morning, the Veterans Healthcare
Administration (VHA) placed key locales on disaster status, and preemptively began
transferring patients to inland medical facilities. These, and the receiving institutions,
mobilized resources and organized operations to prepare for both local effects of
the storm and care of patients no longer able to receive medical care at centers likely
to be affected by damaging winds and flooding. The need, in fact, would be much greater
than anticipated as the Gulfport Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC), and the military
medical center at Keesler Air Force Base were obliterated by the storm and the New
Orleans VAMC rendered inoperable by the levee breach. More than 100,000 veteran patients
were displaced from the gulf coast areas.
KEY INDEXING TERMS
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
May 14,
2008
Received:
April 28,
2008
Identification
Copyright
© 2008 Southern Society for Clinical Investigation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
