« Not Studying, Again. | Main | Baylor College of Medicine Hurricane Plan »
October 4, 2005
Baylor College Of Medicine Hurricane Measures
An interesting e-mail not to be lost:
From: Dr. Peter G. Traber [mailto:notestothepresident@bcm.tmc.edu]
Sent: Mon 9/26/2005 4:07 PM
To: BCM-ALL@LISTSERV.BCM.TMC.EDU
Subject: Post-Hurricane Summary
September 26, 2005
Dear Members of the BCM Family:
I hope that this message finds all of you and your families safe following the landfall of Hurricane Rita. Houston was fortunate to have experienced much less damage than those cities to the east of us. I know that many of you evacuated your homes and I hope that upon your return you found everything safe and intact. Baylor College of Medicine was well prepared for this hurricane thanks to the dedication of a number of individuals in multiple areas.
Following the devastating flooding of Tropical Storm Allison four years ago, BCM evaluated how to protect the College from flood waters and implemented those plans. Our Facilities team was essential in activating those plans last week.
They installed flood gates and film coverings on vulnerable windows that provided protection from Category 5 hurricane winds up to 180 mph. They also ran all the pumps to ensure they were functioning properly in the event water came into the building. It is interesting to note that our pumps have the capacity to remove the equivalent of one tractor-trailer load full of water each minute.
In addition to their work on the main BCM campus, they also worked with facilities crews at other institutions where we have space including SLEH for the Baylor Clinic; TMC for the McGovern Building; TMH for Neurosensory, Smith and Scurlock; and the crews at Greenway Plaza and the Baylor Family Medicine office building. This enabled us to do as much as we could to protect the College's investments in all locations.
In addition to the Facilities team, we also had teams from the Office of Research to coordinate the shut down of labs and work with scientists; the Center for Comparative Medicine to care for research animals; the Office of Environmental Safety to prevent or deal with hazardous products; Information Technology to back up and secure our electronic information systems; and Security to assure that people and property were protected throughout the process.
All together, approximately 140 people devoted their time to prepare BCM for this storm. On Friday evening, 82 of them joined me in spending the night at the campus in the event there was building damage that required immediate attention. Please join me in thanking these dedicated members of the BCM Family who sacrificed being with their own families in order to be at the College as members of the Emergency Operations Team.
Peter G. Traber, M.D.
Posted by Niels Olson at October 4, 2005 10:20 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)