Hurricane Sandy

I have been in health care for over 37 years and I continue to marvel at the level of dedication of hospital and health system employees.  As with every other potential critical event, advance planning for the impact of Hurricane Sandy of our health system and our community began on Friday of last week and continued throughout the weekend.  Our leadership participated in meetings and conference calls over the weekend with Allegany County Emergency Management.  Culminating the weekend's planning was a statewide emergency management conference call last evening at 8 PM.  The process resumes this AM with an internal WMHS planning meeting at 9 AM then the opening of our command center that will remain open until noon on Wednesday.  We have to plan for a host potential issues with first and foremost protecting our patients and staff while they are in our facilities.  All of our staff were informed on Friday that we will provide for sleeping and showering arrangements at the health system in the event that they can't or don't want to travel in the severe weather that is expected.  Because of the extensive planning in advance along with the wealth of knowledge and experience of our middle and senior leadership, we should be fine.  These are the same people that flawlessly opened a new medical center and has prepared for, as well as, survived numerous crises over the years.  I am honored to be associated with such a great staff.   We are all hoping at WMHS that our planning for Sandy is simply a well planned exercise in emergency planning and that we are not impacted by Sandy at all.