sharon sanders
Editor-in-Chief & President
Hat tip Kobie at FW
USA - Washington = In disaster drill, King County tries out temporary hospital Story
During the December 2006 windstorm that left much of the Puget Sound region without power for days, King County public-health officials scrambled to draft a disaster response.
They eventually opened a temporary shelter at Bellevue Community College, caring for four dozen nursing-home evacuees and other residents on bare cots borrowed from the American Red Cross.
In what was billed as one of the first drills of its kind in the nation, Public Health - Seattle & King County and dozens of local groups turned an exhibition hall at Seattle Center into an emergency health-care center. It's one of three sites in King County that would handle an overflow of hospital patients in the event of earthquakes, a pandemic flu, bioterrorism or other disasters.
More than 300 staffers and volunteers took part in the $100,000 exercise. The Seattle Center Exhibition Hall - along with the adjacent opera house at McCaw Hall - can hold 250 cots. The site is equipped to provide portable oxygen and IV drips, among other services.
Officials are negotiating for two more sites, at Renton Community Center and Bellevue Community College, to bring total capacity to 750 beds.
That's a fraction of the almost 60,000 King County residents who might have to be hospitalized during a severe influenza pandemic. Even a more moderate outbreak is projected to lead to 5,200 hospitalizations - surpassing the number of hospital beds in the county by at least 1,200
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008408399_emergency19m.html
USA - Washington = In disaster drill, King County tries out temporary hospital Story
During the December 2006 windstorm that left much of the Puget Sound region without power for days, King County public-health officials scrambled to draft a disaster response.
They eventually opened a temporary shelter at Bellevue Community College, caring for four dozen nursing-home evacuees and other residents on bare cots borrowed from the American Red Cross.
In what was billed as one of the first drills of its kind in the nation, Public Health - Seattle & King County and dozens of local groups turned an exhibition hall at Seattle Center into an emergency health-care center. It's one of three sites in King County that would handle an overflow of hospital patients in the event of earthquakes, a pandemic flu, bioterrorism or other disasters.
More than 300 staffers and volunteers took part in the $100,000 exercise. The Seattle Center Exhibition Hall - along with the adjacent opera house at McCaw Hall - can hold 250 cots. The site is equipped to provide portable oxygen and IV drips, among other services.
Officials are negotiating for two more sites, at Renton Community Center and Bellevue Community College, to bring total capacity to 750 beds.
That's a fraction of the almost 60,000 King County residents who might have to be hospitalized during a severe influenza pandemic. Even a more moderate outbreak is projected to lead to 5,200 hospitalizations - surpassing the number of hospital beds in the county by at least 1,200
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008408399_emergency19m.html