Memories of evacuating CRH...

(First of all, this will be an extremely LONG post, but I wanted to jot down my thoughts before I forget what all happened during this tragic day that I experienced last Saturday!)

Saturday, June 7th, 2008 began as any other normal work day for me. I was up at 5:45am getting ready for a long day at work. I could hear the rain coming down on our sky-light in our bathroom and was dreading the trip across the parking lot into work. I grabbed my umbrella and headed out the door.
When I arrived at work, the rain had actually slowed down some and it was a nice steady rain. We made comments to the night shift as they were leaving about it being "good sleeping weather" and started our day.

Jonathan was home with the kids but had plans to take Parker to his ballgame at 10:30am and then had a golf tournament scheduled in Indianapolis at 1pm Saturday afternoon.
The nurses all kept watching it rain outside and several different times that morning we were commenting on how hard it was raining and that you could hardly see.

Jonathan called to say that the baseball game and golf tournament had been cancelled and that water was getting close to getting into our church again. (Our church was flooded in July of 1997 and had to be completely "gutted.") We were so afraid it was going to happen again.

Later that morning, Jonathan called me at work saying that Franklin, Indiana was flooded and he was going to rescue our friends, Montie and Elaine Dunn from their home. At work we were also hearing rumors of Franklin Hospital's ER being under water. None of us thought to turn on the T.V. in an empty room and we went about caring for our patients. It was a busy Saturday.

The rain had stopped by noon and we thought all was well in our little world of the Birthing Center! I didn't stop to think about if Franklin was flooded that it would soon be heading our way. I kept looking out my patient's window's at Hawcreek that runs in front of the hospital. Earlier in the day I could see the park bench by the creek, by afternoon, that bench was no where to be seen. A short time later, the operator came across the intercom in a panicked voice asking all visitors to exit the hospital immediately. Rumors were flying that the hospital basement had been flooded below us. All housekeeping staff went running off our unit. Again the operator came across and announced that if you were parked in the front or side lots to please move your vehicles. I ran to look out the window and was completely shocked to find muddy water, rushing towards us. The back employee lot where my vehicle was parked was starting to be flooded as well. I called Jonathan to tell him that the parking lots were flooding and we were being asked to move our vehicles. The water wasn't at my vehicle so I stayed on the unit while several nurses ran to their cars. When they got back they were telling how fast the water was coming so I literally ran across the lot to my SUV. There was only one exit at this point and that was to drive up the ramp between the hospital buildings. I got my car moved around to the front of the hospital and went walking back to the back lot where I had just come from a few minutes earlier. The entire lot was now under water and had I not moved my vehicle when I did, it would've been flooded. There were several cars in the lot that were now under water. I waded through water to get back into the hospital. The back lot was beginning to look like a muddy ocean. I had been talking to Jonathan at this time and it was now 4:51pm. He said he would come get my vehicle and pick me up from work later that evening when I clocked out...

I got back on the unit and went into a patient's room to check on her and it got extremely quiet while I was in the room. By that I mean, no air moving, no computer's humming, no lights on, etc. I checked to see if the buttons on her bed worked and they did. I said, "Did we just lose power?" Some didn't think so because stuff was working. We didn't realize we were running on generators. A very short time later, the generators blew and CRH had lost all power. (Those red outlets that are to always have power, didn't....) My very first thought through my mind was, "Oh no...what about the patient's in ICU on ventilators!!!!" I calmly walked out of my patient's room to a very dark hallway. Nurses and Techs were all standing around not knowing exactly what to do. About that time, the operator came across and announced in a very panicky voice, "Attention...we have a Code 10 Emergency!" (That meant a disaster!) We found flash lights and grabbed our disaster manuals in hopes to find out what to do next. Unfortunately, there was nothing in the manual to tell us what to do in case of a flood! We went around and explained to our patients that the basement was flooded and we had lost power. We quickly found out that we also had no phone lines so no access to the outside world. A few nurses had cell phones with them but we had very limited access due to over crowded phone lines during this time. We tried to call our boss and charge nurses for help. One of the OB doctor's was there with us and thankfully was a huge help. We heard that water was now flooding the first floor which meant the entire basement, with 8-12 feet walls,was full and rising. Now we were being told that we were evacuating the entire hospital immediately. We passed out prescriptions, car seats, formula, diapers, etc. and grabbed all available wheelchairs and down the hallways we went. By now it was mid-evening and quite dark in certain areas of the hospital where there were no windows. Dr. Davis and I had a particular patient that had just been out of surgery for approx 1 hour. She was our first to get off the unit. He took off with her and I quickly followed behind them carrying the baby. Up to this point, all had been fairly calm on our unit. As we got to the only possible exit of the hospital, there were crowds of people. This is when it hit me that we were in a true life, disaster! God helped our patient to be able to stand and walk down the stairs with our assistance, and we put her in a wheel chair at the bottom of the steps and waded through water mid-shin deep. Outside there were hundreds of employees running around, people with clipboards, code carts, gurneys with dressing supplies, oxygen tanks, ambulances, helicopters, police cars, fire trucks, loud fire alarms that were going off non-stop inside the hospital, a laptop computer set up as they were trying to track pt's, etc. The part that sticks out in my mind the most were those poor, critically ill patients, scared to death and being wheeled through water or carried down 6-7 flights of stairs to safety. The National Guard had come to help and I passed several of them dressed in their camouflage outfits, carrying out our sick, helpless patients. Many of these patients were sitting outside in the smothering heat, wearing oxygen, some were having trouble breathing, many had IV's hanging, some were shaking from fear, and at this point in time, I felt helpless. I stood there with my patient while our OB doctor was making arrangements for her to be transferred. Some time later, I helped get her on a cart and into an ambulance. I then took the baby and helped the father strap her in the car seat, gave him some formula and told him when to feed the baby again, and sent him on his way.
Back to the unit to do this all over again. The next time I went outside, the water was up higher, my hose and shoes were filled with muddy water and my dress was getting wet above my knees. We were able to safely get all of our patient's to their own personal cars or on ambulances as well as 2 of our NICU babies into a helicopter. After making sure everyone was rescued, we put tape across the doors making a statement that all rooms had been evacuated. Charts were thrown all over the nurses station, half eaten supper trays were left in the rooms, trash wasn't emptied but everyone was safe. We walked out out of our unit together, not knowing the extent of the damage beneath us and thinking that we would be back in just a few short days. As we were walking out of the hospital, we paused to look at our beautiful front lobby, covered in muddy water. Dr Davis mentioned that "We forgot to rescue the birds!" (I see in this picture from the local newspaper website that the birds have evidently been rescued since then!) We waded out of the hospital in muddy water and it was now about 9:15pm. I hadn't talked to Jonathan for hours and he had no idea what was going on in my world nor I in his. He had come to get my car earlier that evening so I was riding home with a co-worker. She had to drive through water to the bottom of her car door to get out of the parking lot. I was able to locate Jonathan via cell phone and met up with him in the Target parking lot. After I got away from the hospital that night, I began to feel shaky and began to cry while describing it to Jonathan and my Mom over the phone. That day will forever be etched in my memory. I felt like I was in a movie and it wouldn't stop. It is something that I don't ever want to live through again, but am glad that I was working that day also.

We don't know what our future holds with our jobs at CRH. We have an all-employee meeting in the morning and that should answer many questions. As you can imagine, rumors are flying but I am leaving it in God's hands.

(Some of these pictures were taken directly from our local newspaper website at www.therepublic.com Check out the website for a video clipping of inside CRH after the flooding occurred.)