Hospital's preparedness for Hurricane Katrina
Angel Aucoin by Mary Price, 2007, 4700.1949
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Angel Aucoin. Photo by David Breidenbach.
TEMPESTS: Storms in the Archives
Mary Price: Did the hospital [Memorial Medical Center] have a contingency plan for that kind of storm? Stocking up supplies?
Angel Aucoin: Well, I think it happened so fast. Our cafeteria's in the basement. So we ran out of food the minute the water came up. I think we just avoided that bullet all them years, and this one caught us. And I think we were hoping to avoid.
Price: Because I had worked on a book on Charity Hospital during Katrina, and they had stockpiled some food and water and that kind of thing. But that . . . the hospital administration . . .
Aucoin: You would like to think that we had water stocked somewhere. But it makes me wonder, given that by Monday we were out of food and water. So where was it?
Price: Yeah. What about generators and power?
Aucoin: Generators were under water. So they had no power. And I'm sure I'll get to how we evacuated the patients. And I'll tell you about how that came to hurt us, with the power. But yeah, our generators were in the basement/first floor area, so it was like having none.
Price: Were you afraid to stay? How did you feel about staying?
Aucoin: I was of course uncomfortable to stay, yes. But I was always uncomfortable to stay. It wasn't like Katrina was different. I was always cautious because I had kids. I didn't ever take the kids with me because I don't think that's a situation kids should be put in, if I can do anything else. Because it gets dangerous. You've got to think, you've got people who are going to be without medicines. You have drug addicts on the street who live around the corner. And we have what they need in a time when they can't get it. So you always going to know, these people are going to come in and do what they need to do to get what they need to get. So you don't want kids there. You don't want yourself in that situation, but, I mean, I had to be there. So you make the best of it, and you try and do the best you can.