Preparing for severe weather, especially during hurricane season, is a very important part of safety planning at HMSL. Having an emergency preparedness plan that covers “all hazards” is the best strategy and the beginning of hurricane season gives the safety committee an excuse for taking a close look at what we would do if there is flooding and high winds associated with hurricanes.
While our goal is to maintain normal hospital operations, we know that can become a challenge when our community is confronted with a potentially disastrous weather event. At no time do we want our employees to be in harm’s way, but we also have a commitment to our community to take care of our patients.
Details of our emergency preparedness plan can be found in Chapter 2 of our hospital safety manual on the intranet at http://www.tmh.tmc.edu/sugarland/firemanual.htm. You can also find the direct link to Emergency Preparedness on the intranet at http://www.tmh.tmc.edu/sugarland/Eprep/home.htm. Although Fort Bend County is not in the evacuation zone of zip codes, many of our employees may be, so you can also find the evacuation zip code maps on our intranet.
Each department has a unit-specific emergency preparedness plan. It is important that you know where to find this information and understand what your role is in the event on an emergency. In the event of a hurricane, have you been assigned to the “ride out” team or the “recovery” team? Contact your department’s safety representative or your management team to have this discussion and review your role in your department’s plan. Depending upon the storm information that we receive, you may need to be prepared to stay at the hospital if you are on the “ride out” team. This will require that employees have the opportunity to go home early and plan accordingly before returning to the hospital.
We may need to communicate important information to you if the Houston region is threatened by a storm or severe weather. Please be sure your contact information in MARS is current so you can receive our systemwide text and email announcements in case of emergency. To update your contact information, log into MARS. Find the “My Information” section and click “Personal Information.” Double check that your phone number, email address and mailing address are all current.
At HMSL, we also have a Disaster Information Line at 713.441.0404 where employees can hear a recorded message of the conditions at the hospital. We know from past experiences, like with Hurricane Ike in 2008, that we needed multiple ways to be able to communicate with our employees, including social media and phone texts, due to multiple outages of traditional telephone communications. Again, please make certain that your management team has your current contact information and this information has been updated in the MARS portal.