3 Planetary heat retention produces “climate drivers” such as anomalously warm tropical oceans, the primary energy source for hurricanes. 2 Human actions, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, potentiate climate change, causing Earth to retain more heat energy than it emits. For nursing homes, corresponding tallies were 21 and 35 and for assisted living facilities, 47 and 21.Ĭlimate change is exacerbating hurricane hazardsĬlimate is changing at an alarming pace, making it harder for communities to prepare and respond to increasingly unpredictable extreme weather events. In Louisiana, 15 hospitals were fully evacuated and 18 operated on generator power. Two days after impact, as power outages affected 990,000 Louisiana residents and 46,000 Mississippi residents, 1755 patients had been evacuated from 12 hospitals in the two states. Evacuation of COVID-19 inpatients had to be performed swiftly while ensuring that infection control measures were taken to prevent spread of the highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant that was predominant nationwide. The situation was most precarious for COVID-19 patients requiring mechanical ventilation or oxygen. Hurricane damage and power outages forced healthcare facilities to evacuate patients, shift to generator power, or both. Hurricane Ida's devastation added to these strained healthcare systems. Medical wards had been converted to COVID-19 units to accommodate the surge and there were essentially no available ICU beds at any hospitals. Louisiana had 2,266 hospitalized COVID-19 patients and Mississippi had 1673. At the moment of impact, medical centres in both states were filled with pandemic cases, many of whom were in intensive care units (ICUs). Infrared satellite image of Hurricane Ida making landfall in Louisiana on Augwith maximum sustained winds of 150 mph (Image credit: NOAA).Ī public health emergency was declared for both states one day prior to landfall.
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