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A Feb. 5 tornado in Mountain View lifted much of the roof off of Stone County Medical Center in Mountain View while patients were in the hospital.

It sounds like the script for a disaster movie: An F4 tornado tracks across the ground for 123 miles, leaving a wide path of destruction across North Central Arkansas from the Arkansas River Valley to the Missouri border.

Thirteen people die, and hundreds of homes are damaged or destroyed.

To make matters even worse, two of the state’s 28 Critical Access Hospitals are in its path. One, Stone County Medical Center (SCMC) in Mountain View, is partially destroyed. The other, Ozark Health Medical Center in Clinton, suffers damage to its old facility, but the new building is spared and stays open.

Unfortunately, it was no Hollywood spectacle. This was the real thing, and it happened on Feb. 5. That giant tornado was one of dozens of tornadoes, thunder- and hail storms and flash floods that ravaged Arkansas this spring, including an April 3 twister that injured four in a mobile home park near Little Rock, and a suspected F3 tornado that hit Stuttgart on May 10, injuring three.

“I think it’s the worst season in recent memory,” said Tommy Jackson, head public information officer of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management. “Sadly, we’ve had 20 fatalities.”

There were about 65 people in the Mountain View hospital, including patients, staff and visitors, when the Feb. 5 twister hit, said Karen Craft, SCMC administrator. “We had about 10 minutes warning.”

Patients were moved into the hallways and the maintenance director stood outside, searching the skies. “He came in and said the tornado was coming over the ridge,” Craft said. “We had just a few seconds at that point.”

“It came over a ridge, plowed through a car dealership and clobbered the hospital,” said Beth Ingram, vice president of the Arkansas Hospital Association.

The tornado blew out the hospital’s front windows and lifted the roof.
“People were afraid they were going to be sucked out,” Craft said. “It took just seconds, but it seemed like forever.”

Despite receiving significant damage, SCMC continued to accept patients and treat storm victims. The emergency department sustained severe damage and was closed to inpatients, but the surgery department remained open as an emergency treatment and transfer center.

No patients or employees were injured, and the 17 patients who were in the hospital when it was hit were transferred to other facilities for care or were discharged.

Twenty-four days later, the hospital began admitting patients again, and 12 of the hospital’s 25 beds opened after the Arkansas Department of Health gave approval. A modular building now houses the ER, laboratory, X-ray, respiratory therapy, pharmacy and other services.

Ozark Health Medical Center was spared damage although its community did suffer some destruction. CEO Kirk Reamey said that within two hours of the tornado, 51 patients were assessed and treated. Some of the more severely injured were transported to hospitals in Conway and Little Rock. Three were severely injured, Reamey said, but no one died.

Not only did the staff and volunteers provide medical care in the next few days, they also provided food, shelter and other care for those in need.

“It had a huge effect on us,” Reamey said. “We were on emergency power and had people whose homes were swept away” staying there, plus their pets.

Feb. 5 was “the big one,” Reamey said, but added, “We’ve had seven in and around Clinton.”

In fact, the spring of 2008 is turning out to be one of the most active in U.S. history with tornadoes causing mass destruction across the Plains and Midwest virtually each week.

The outbreak of severe weather is also taking a psychological toll, Jackson said. “People have told me they’re afraid to watch the weather report, and afraid not to.”

The rash of severe weather, particularly the Feb. 5 tornado, has been a good test of Arkansas hospitals’ disaster plans.

“Any hospital anywhere has a disaster plan,” said the hospital association’s Ingram. “Our hospitals all participate in hospital preparedness grants from the government and they work together in regions. They go into disaster mode and are ready to help whichever hospital needs help.”

Hospitals routinely practice disaster drills.

“We (committees) meet each month and stay on top of things. We feel like we stay well-prepared,” said Brenda Harrison, director of community relations at Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Russellville. “Everybody in the hospital knows their part to play.”

Saint Mary’s and Russellville have been spared from damage so far, but when nearby Atkins was hit, the hospital put into effect many aspects of its plan, Harrison said. Phone calls were made to emergency-trained staff and physicians and additional personnel came in without being called. Those already at work stayed on their regular shifts to help. There are usually two physicians in the ER, but during the tornado, two additional physicians, two surgeons, an anesthesiologist, an ENT and two APNs were on duty. Twenty-six patients were seen that evening including 15 with tornado-related injuries. A secondary care site was set up in Diagnostic Recovery where a physician and an APN took care of less urgent patients.

Severe weather now makes everyone take drills and disaster plans more seriously, said Kent Strum, interim CEO of Delta Memorial Hospital in Dumas, which received light damage from a tornado in spring 2007.

“I wasn’t there when that happened, but we have our own internal disaster plan and, apparently, it did work quite well,” Strum said. “I think everybody pays more attention to it (weather) now. It makes our drills take on a greater urgency.”

As bad as the damage is to her hospital, SCMC’s Craft is looking on the bright side. The damaged portions of the building will be rebuilt “completely different,” making changes the hospital had wanted to make anyway, she said.
Groundbreaking is set for January 2009, and construction should be completed in two years.



July 2008

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