At least 170 US hospitals face major flood risk. Experts say Trump is making it worse

By Holly K Hacker Brett Kelman Daniel Chang Hannah Norman Lydia Zuraw KFF Medical News LOUISVILLE Tenn When a big storm hits Peninsula Hospital could be underwater At this decades-old psychiatric hospital on the edge of the Tennessee River an intense storm could submerge the building in feet of water cutting off all roads around the facility according to a sophisticated computer simulation of flood peril Aurora a young woman who was committed to Peninsula as a teenager announced the hospital sits so close to the river that it felt like a moat keeping her and dozens of other patients inside KFF Strength News agreed not to publish her full name because she shared private therapeutic history My first feeling is doom Aurora stated as she watched the simulation of the river rising around the hospital These are apparently specific of the the bulk vulnerable people Peninsula Hospital a psychiatric hospital southwest of Knoxville on the edge of the Tennessee River could be surrounded by feet of water in an intense storm according to flood simulations by Fathom Brett Kelman KFF Wellbeing News KFF Fitness News TNS Covenant Strength which runs Peninsula Hospital mentioned in a comment it has a proactive and thorough approach to crisis planning but declined to provide details or answer questions Peninsula is one of about American hospitals totaling nearly recipient beds from coast to coast that face the greatest peril of crucial or dangerous flooding according to a months-long KFF Soundness News research based on content provided by Fathom a company considered a leader in flood simulation At numerous of these hospitals flooding from heavy storms has the prospective to jeopardize client care block access to crisis rooms and force evacuations Sometimes there is no other hospital nearby KFF Wellbeing News agreed not to publish her full name because she shared private anatomical history Brett Kelman KFF Healthcare News KFF Healthcare News TNS Much of this jeopardy to hospitals is not captured by flood maps issued by the Federal Crisis Management Agency which have served as the nation s de facto tool for flood estimation for half a century despite being incomplete and sometimes decades out of date As FEMA s maps have become divorced from the reality of a changing setting private companies like Fathom have filled the gap with simulations of future floods But several of their predictions are behind a paywall leaving the constituents mostly reliant on free significantly limited ruling body maps This is highly concerning disclosed Caleb Dresser who studies context change and is both an crisis room medical practitioner and a Harvard University assistant professor If you don t have the information to know you re at peril then how can you triage that complication The deadliest hospital flooding in modern American history occurred years ago during Hurricane Katrina when the bodies of people were recovered from New Orleans Memorial Medicinal Center including a few patients whom investigators suspected were euthanized More flooding deaths were narrowly avoided one year ago when helicopters rescued dozens of people as Hurricane Helene engulfed Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin Tennessee Rebecca Harrison a paramedic called her children from the Unicoi roof to say goodbye I was scared to death thinking This is it Harrison notified CBS News which interviewed Unicoi survivors as part of KFF Healthcare News examination Alarms were going off People were screaming It was chaos The review among the first to analyze nationwide hospital flood liability in an era of warming circumstances and worsening storms comes as the administration of President Donald Trump has slashed federal agencies that forecast and respond to extreme weather and also dismantled FEMA programs designed to protect hospitals and other essential buildings from floods When required to comment FEMA explained flooding is a common costly and under appreciated calamity but made no comment specific to hospitals Spokesperson Daniel Llargu s defended the administration s changes to FEMA by reissuing an August message that dismissed criticism as coming from bureaucrats who presided over decades of inefficiency Alice Hill an Obama administration atmosphere vulnerability expert declared the Trump administration s dismissal of circumstances change and worsening floods would waste billions of dollars and endanger lives In Hill led the creation of the Federal Flood Liability Management Standard which required that hospitals and other essential structures be elevated or incorporate extra flood protections to qualify for federal funding FEMA stopped enforcing the standard in March People will die as a aftermath of specific of the choices being made in the current era Hill mentioned We will be less prepared than we are now And we already were in my estimation poorly prepared Flood Threat Is Everywhere The KFF Strength News probe identified more than hospitals facing a flood peril by comparing the locations of more than facilities to peer-reviewed flood hazard mapping provided by Fathom a United Kingdom company that simulates flooding in spaces as small as meters using laser-precision elevation measurements from the U S Geological Survey Hospitals were determined to have a key menace if Fathom s -year flood records predicted that a foot or more of water could reach a considerable portion of their buildings excluding parking garages or cut off road access to the hospital A -year flood is an intense weather event that has roughly a chance of occurring in any given year but can happen more often Related Articles New US sanctions target people companies and ships for allegedly aiding Iran s oil and gas transaction US diplomat fired over relationship with woman accused of ties to Chinese Communist Party Frustrated lawmakers say lack of trust is making it harder to end the administration shutdown Federal court to weigh Trump s deployment of National Guard troops in Chicago area Trump to undergo physical exam Friday as strength questions linger The scrutiny ascertained heightened flood risks at large trauma centers small rural hospitals children s hospitals and long-term care facilities that serve older and disabled patients At least are critical access hospitals with the next-closest hospital miles away on average Flooding threatens dozens of hospitals in coastal areas including in Florida Louisiana Texas and New York Farther inland flooding of rivers or creeks could envelop other hospitals particularly in Appalachia and the Midwest Even in the sun-soaked cities and arid expanses of the American West storms have the promising to surround particular hospitals with several feet of pooling water according to Fathom s information These findings are likely an undercount of hospitals at pitfall because the research overlooked pockets of prospective flooding at specific hospitals It excluded facilities like stand-alone ERs outpatient clinics and nursing homes The reality is that flood pitfall is everywhere It is the greater part pervasive of perils announced Oliver Wing the chief scientific officer at Fathom who reviewed the findings Just because you ve never experienced an extreme doesn t mean you never will Dresser the ER clinician commented even a small amount of flooding can shut down an unprepared hospital often by interrupting its power supply which is needed for life-sustaining equipment like ventilators and heart monitors He revealed the the greater part vulnerable hospitals would likely be in rural areas A lot of rural hospitals are now closing their pediatric units closing their psychiatry units Dresser commented In a financially stressed situation it can be hard to prioritize long-term threats even if they are for several institutions potentially existential Urban hospitals can face dangerous flooding too Fathom s details predicts to feet of water around neighboring hospitals Kadlec Regional Physiological Center and Lourdes Behavioral Robustness that straddle a tiny creek in Richland Washington By Fathom s estimate a -year flood could cause the nearby Columbia River to spill over a levee that protects Richland then loosely follow the creek to the hospitals Particular of the deepest flooding is estimated around Lourdes which was built on land the U S Army Corps of Engineers set aside in as a ponding and drainage easement At the time this land was supposed to be capable of storing enough water to fill at least Olympic-size swimming pools according to military documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act A mental wellness facility has occupied this spot since the s All the Elements of a Real Tragedy One year ago as Hurricane Helene carved a deadly path across Southern Appalachia Angel Mitchell was visiting her ailing mother at Unicoi County Hospital in the tiny town of Erwin Tennessee Swollen by Helene the nearby Nolichucky River spilled over its banks and around the hospital which was built in a flood plain Staff tried to bar the doors Mitchell commented but the water got in trapping her and others inside The lights went out People fled to the roof where the roar of rushing water nearly drowned out the approach of rescue helicopters Mitchell announced Ultimately people from the hospital including Mitchell and her mother were airlifted to safety on Sept The hospital remains closed and the company that owns it Ballad Robustness has revealed its reopening is uncertain Why allow something especially a hospital to be built in an area like that Mitchell reported CBS News People have to rely on these areas to get healthcare help and they re dangerous Beyond Unicoi KFF Physical condition News identified inland hospitals including in Appalachia that Fathom predicts could flood when nearby rivers creeks or drainage canals overspill their banks even in storms far less intense than Helene For example in the Cumberland Mountains of southwestern Virginia a -year flood is projected to cause Slate Creek to engulf Buchanan General Hospital in more than feet of water Near the Great Lakes in Erie Pennsylvania LECOM Health Center and Behavioral Fitness Pavilion could become flooded by a small drainage creek that is less than feet from the front door of the ER Neither Buchanan nor LECOM responded to questions about flooding or preparations And in West Virginia s capital of Charleston where about people live at the junction of two rivers in a wide and flat valley a single storm could potentially flood five of the city s six hospitals at once along with schools churches fire departments and other facilities I hate to say it reported Behrang Bidadian a flood plain manager at the West Virginia GIS Technical Center but it has all the elements of a real catastrophe CAMC Women and Children s Hospital in Charleston West Virginia is located on the banks of the Elk River Extreme weather could cause the river to swell beyond its banks and surround the hospital closing off all exits according to a simulation of flooding figures from the company Fathom CAMC spokesperson Dale Witte commented the hospital system has prepared by Daniel Chang KFF Soundness News KFF Vitality News TNS The largest hospital in Charleston West Virginia CAMC Memorial is located near the Kanawha River which runs the length of the city Daniel Chang KFF Wellness News KFF Healthcare News TNS Thomas Orthopedic Hospital is located near the juncture of the Elk and Kanawha rivers in Charleston West Virginia Daniel Chang KFF Fitness News KFF Wellness News TNS Shanen Wright has lived in Charleston West Virginia nearly five decades and says he has never seen the Kanawha River rise above its banks Daniel Chang KFF Robustness News KFF Medical News TNS Show Caption of CAMC Women and Children s Hospital in Charleston West Virginia is located on the banks of the Elk River Extreme weather could cause the river to swell beyond its banks and surround the hospital closing off all exits according to a simulation of flooding records from the company Fathom CAMC spokesperson Dale Witte commented the hospital system has prepared by Daniel Chang KFF Wellbeing News KFF Strength News TNS Expand Shanen Wright a lifelong Charleston resident who lives near CAMC Memorial stated a large number of in the city have little worry about flooding in the face of more immediate problems like the opioid epidemic and the decline of manufacturing and mining Tugboats and coal barges sail past his neighborhood as if they were cars on his street It s not to say it s not a possibility he announced I m sure the people in Asheville and the people in Texas where the floods took so a large number of lives they supposedly didn t see it coming either The Water Is Coming Despite wide scientific consensus that setting change fuels more dangerous weather the Trump administration has taken the position that concerns about global warming are overblown In a speech to the United Nations in September Trump called atmosphere change the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world The Trump administration has made deep staff and funding cuts to FEMA NOAA and the National Weather Organization At FEMA the cuts prompted current and former employees to publish a letter in August warning that the agency is being dismantled from within Daniel Swain a University of California situation scientist explained the administration s rejection of environment change has left the nation less prepared for extreme weather now and in the future It s akin to enforcing malpractice scientifically Swain disclosed Imagine making a diagnostic decision where you are not allowed to look at of the individual s vital signs or test results Under Trump FEMA has also taken actions critics say will leave the nation more vulnerable to flooding specifically FEMA disbanded the Technical Mapping Advisory Council which had repeatedly pushed the agency to modernize its flood maps to estimate future liability and account for the impacts of context change FEMA canceled its Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities undertaking which provided grants to help communities and vital buildings including hospitals protect themselves from floods and other natural disasters And after stopping enforcement early this year FEMA intends to rescind the Federal Flood Vulnerability Management Standard which was designed to harden buildings against future floods and save tax dollars in the long run Berginnis of the Association of State Floodplain Managers explained the administration s unwillingness to prepare for state change and worsening storms would consequence in a dangerous and costly cycle of flooding rebuilding and flooding again The president is saying we are closed for business when it comes to hazard mitigation Berginnis declared It bugs me to no end that we have to have reminders like people dying to show us why it s key to make these investments FEMA did not answer specific questions about these decisions In the announcement to KFF Physical condition News spokesperson Llargu s touted the administration s response to flooding in Texas and New Mexico and mentioned FEMA had provided billions of dollars to help people and communities recover and rebuild He did not mention any FEMA funding for protecting against future floods Inadequate hospitals understand this threat more than the former Coney Island Hospital in New York City which has suffered catastrophic flooding before and has prepared for it to come again Superstorm Sandy in forced the hospital to evacuate hundreds of patients When the water receded fish and a sea turtle were detected in the building Eleven years later the facility reopened as Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospital transformed by a FEMA-funded million reconstruction project that added a -foot floodwall and elevated client care areas and utility infrastructure above the first floor It is now likely one of the largest part flood-proofed hospitals in the nation But so far no storm has tested the facility Svetlana Lipyanskaya CEO of NYC Medical Hospitals South Brooklyn Wellness which includes the rebuilt hospital revealed the question of flooding is not an if but a when I hope it doesn t happen in my lifetime she mentioned but frankly I d be surprised The water is coming Methodology After Hurricane Helene made landfall a year ago a raging river flooded a rural hospital in eastern Tennessee Patients and employees were rescued from the rooftop Floods have hit hospitals from New York to Nebraska to Texas in up-to-date years We demanded to determine how numerous other U S hospitals face similar peril Ultimately we identified more than hospitals at liability For this analysis we used statistics from Fathom a United Kingdom-based company that specializes in flood-risk modeling across the globe To assess the United States vulnerability Fathom uses sophisticated computer simulations and detailed terrain figures covering the country It accounts for environmental factors such as state change soil conditions and multiple rivers and creeks not mapped by other sources Fathom s modeling has been peer-reviewed and used by insurance companies the World Bank the Nature Conservancy and leadership agencies in Florida Texas and elsewhere The Iowa Flood Center has validated Fathom s U S material Through a information use agreement Fathom shared its U S mapping information that predicts areas with at least a chance of flooding in any given year Fathom s figures estimates the effects of three main types of flooding coastal fluvial from overflowing rivers lakes or streams and pluvial rainfall that the ground can t absorb The statistics also accounts for dams reservoirs and other structures that defend against floods To identify at-risk hospitals we used a publicly available Department of Homeland Defense database containing the GPS coordinates of more than short-term acute critical access rehab and psychiatric hospitals basically any hospital with inpatient services DHS under the Trump administration has discontinued constituents access to the database so details for hospitals and other infrastructure is no longer widely available Using GPS coordinates as the centerpoint we created a circle with a -yard radius around each hospital which in most of cases captured the building plus nearby grounds and access roads We then mapped Fathom s flood-risk content to see where it overlapped with these circles We started by looking for hospitals where at least of the circle s area had a predicted flood depth of at least foot That gave us an initial list of more than hospitals across the U S From there we visually inspected those hospitals using mapping program and Google Maps both satellite and street view We trimmed our list to only the hospitals where a considerable portion of the building or all access roads were predicted to have at least a foot of flooding If two hospitals were mapped to the same building for instance a small rehab facility within a large hospital we counted only one hospital We also excluded hospitals in recent months converted to nursing homes or for other uses We ended up with a list of hospitals across the U S That is the majority likely an undercount Specific hospitals could still face notable impact from flooding that is not deep enough or widespread enough to fit our methodology Our analysis also does not account for how flooding farther from a hospital could affect employees or patients And it does not assess what moves hospitals may have already taken to prepare for severe weather events We also ran a spatial analysis comparing Fathom s facts with flood hazard maps from the Federal Emergency Management Agency which in numerous cases are incomplete or haven t been updated in years We detected that about a third of hospitals identified as flood risks by Fathom s evidence did not overlap at all with FEMA s - or -year hazard areas Fathom provided guidance and feedback as we developed our analysis CBS News correspondent David Schechter and photojournalist Chance Horner contributed to this record KFF Strength News Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC