After an EF5 tornado destroyed St. John's Regional Medical Center in Joplin, Mo., three years ago, Mercy health-care system officials have said a new hospital under construction will be stronger and better able to withstand storms.
While touring the new hospital recently, John Farnen, Mercy's executive director for strategic projects, pointed out underground fuel tanks, concrete walls and windows that can withstand winds of up to 250 mph -- all improvements over the former building.
"We are very confident about the outer structure," Farnen said. "We are confident we shouldn't have to vacate this facility."
St. John's was the largest hospital hit by an EF5 tornado in United States history, Farnen said. He said the disaster has been a learning experience for hospital officials.
The tornado struck Joplin in the afternoon on May 22, 2011. It killed 161 people, making it the eighth-deadliest tornado in the U.S., and left a 6-mile path of destruction. More than 7,500 homes or apartments were destroyed or damaged.
St. John's took a direct hit. Five people were killed at the hospital. Most were in the intensive-care unit. In the storm's wake, it looked as though a bomb had gone off, hospital officials said.
Tracy Hernandez, an emergency-room nurse for Mercy in Joplin, was working at St. John's the day the tornado hit. She said the new building will offer her some peace of mind.
"They are making it absolutely as safe as they possibly can," Hernandez said.
On the day of the storm, Hernandez was in the emergency room, whose front was hit by the tornado.
"The biggest thing is that we had zero power," she said. "The lights flickered for an instant when the lights kicked off, but the generators were in a place where they were destroyed. The only lights we had were flashlights. It will be really nice to know we have a reliable source of power."
Debris and ankle-deep water made moving around without light even more difficult, Hernandez said.
"We knew we had to move from a place that was not safe and find one that was," she said. "Everything around us was destroyed, and we didn't know where safe was. It took us time to figure that out."
Mercy's new 200-patient-capacity hospital is set to open in March. Its construction cost about $350 million, Farnen said.
The outside of the structure is nearly complete, with concrete walls about a foot thick rising nine stories. In some places, bricks add to the building's exterior design. Farnen said the bricks were laid on a concrete slab and connected to the concrete walls.
The concrete walls in the old hospital withstood the tornado, Farnen said.
In the new building, not only will the walls be concrete, but the floor and roof will be, as well. The tornado ripped a hole in the old hospital's metal roof. Farnen said people on the top floor could see through to the sky above.
Cynthia Beckham, executive director of facility design for Mercy, said building hospitals to withstand tornadoes was not a concern before the Joplin twister.
"In my 25 years it has never came up," Beckham said. She said some hospitals, such as ones in St. Louis, have been built to withstand earthquakes but not tornadoes.
Mercy runs 32 acute-care hospitals in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. It also runs several smaller hospitals for specialty services such as heart care or rehabilitative services.
Joplin raised awareness of the need for tornado safety at hospitals, Beckham said.
"It is important because of the quantity of people already in compromised positions," Beckham said.
Windows that could stand up to 110-mph winds were used in a behavioral unit of the old hospital. Farnen said they were the only ones that didn't blow out during the storm.
All of the windows in the new building will be at least that strong. The strongest windows will be on the intensive-care floor and will be able to withstand 250-mph winds.
"The ICU patients are your most critical," Farnen said. "Sometimes you can't move them."
Mercy had to find a company to design the windows, Farnen said. The company used a machine to simulate wood planks hitting the window at 250 mph. Once the windows could survive two hits from the wood, they were deemed safe and suitable. He said it took nine months for the company to create them.
"They didn't exist before," Farnen said.
Utilities at St. John's were above ground, and some equipment sat on the roof, Farnen said. In the new hospital, all utilities -- including generators, boilers and electrical gear -- will either be on the top floor or in a storm-safe building separate from the hospital. Electrical wiring, along with gas and water pipes, will run underground.
"When the tornado came, we lost all the utilities," Farnen said. "The generators were lost. They didn't have any lights. We are hoping we can maintain utility resources."
Inside the new hospital, the hallways and rooms are still unfinished, and the nearly 900,000-square-foot building has no furniture. Groups of wires snake, exposed, across the ceiling. Construction workers are preparing concrete floors for finishing.
An inner wall that runs through the core of the building was built with more studs than are typically used. Continuous hinges, instead of two or three small hinges, span the full lengths of the doors.
Certain stairwells designated as evacuation routes are lined with hard board instead of drywall, Farnen said. The stairwells also have battery-operated lighting.
Farnen said hospital officials from around the nation have been calling Mercy officials asking for advice.
Officials from the Cherokee Nation toured Joplin's new hospital Friday, said Amanda Clinton, spokesman for the nation. She said Cherokee Nation Businesses, the business arm of the tribe, recently approved $7.5 million to fortify a planned surgical hospital against tornadoes. She said officials hope to break ground on the hospital this year.
Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker said in a prepared statement that it is important to make sure patients and staff members are safe in the new hospital.
"We are eager to learn how the new Joplin hospital was planned and constructed," Baker said. "Even if the cost is a little more in the construction, we know we are making an investment for our people for the next 60 to 70 years."
Cherokee Businesses previously approved spending $100 million on the new surgical hospital along with construction of two new clinics and renovations of two other clinics, Clinton said. She said the hospital is still in the design stage.
Beyond safety concerns, Mercy hospital officials have completely rethought hospital design, Beckham said. She said a focus has been on making the building more efficient for patients and staff members.
The last time Mercy built a full-service hospital was about eight years ago in Rogers. Beckham said most of Mercy's other hospitals were built in the 1960s and have been added onto since.
Farnen said it is easier to build a hospital from scratch.
For example, a person walking in the front door of the physicians entrance at the Joplin hospital will be able to look straight down the hallway to the main entrance of the hospital.
Each floor of the hospital will have doctors offices and services that relate to the care provided on that floor. Gynecologist offices will be on the same floor as delivery rooms, for instance. Emergency-department patient rooms will be across the hall from imaging devices and an operating room.
Farnen said this will alleviate the walking for ill or injured patients, and will save nurses time.
"Nurses will probably walk 50 percent less than they do in our other hospitals," Farnen said.
Hernandez said she has seen blueprints for the emergency department in the new hospital.
"It looks awesome," she said. "It is going to be a nice place. It is going to be overwhelming for us to step in there."
Metro on 06/01/2014