Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink

still. The news was confusing and worrisome, but there was work to
     do.
    The sun rose, and around Memorial the streets remained dry. The sky outside the windows
     was blue. At seven a.m., after the stabbed patient was settled in, nurse manager Karen
     Wynn went downstairs to the relocated command center on the fourth floor for the day’s
     first meeting of the disaster leadership team.
    The meeting took place in a large, rectangular room marked NURSING RESOURCE CENTER . White linoleum tables held a bank of computers normally used for training nurses.
     The computers were connected to the Internet and plugged into the red emergency outlets
     that operated off the generator system.
    The room offered a sense of remove. Homey pink, pleated valances framed windows overlooking
     a courtyard enclosed by the reddish-brown tapestry brick of the old hospital building.
     There were mismatched sofas, brown cabinets, and a sink. The hospital’s chief financial
     officer, Curtis Dosch, had brought over a television set with a rabbit-ear antenna,
     placed it on a low table, and plugged it into a red outlet. Staff hunched down to
     peer at it, though it showed mainly static.
    Susan Mulderick, Wynn’s longtime boss, ran the meeting. Wynn trusted Mulderick, who
     had hired her as a staff nurse when she started her career in the 1980s, then promoted
     her to manager when Wynn was pregnant and on bed rest. While others saw only the professional,
     intimidating Mulderick, Wynn knew inside she was a marshmallow, a cream puff. She
     had always set clear expectations and given Wynn the freedom and support she needed
     to meet them. Wynn adored Mulderick and admired her intelligence and creativity.
    The command team announced a shift in hospital operations from “assault mode” to “survival
     mode.” This unofficial designation reflected news they had received minutes before
     the meeting. An Acadianambulance worker on-site had confirmed with his dispatchers that one of the canals
     in New Orleans had been breached. That meant water could be headed toward the hospital.
     Memorial’s workers might be exhausted, but they were beginning to realize that rather
     than signing out their patients to the returning “B” team and going home, they could
     be stuck at the hospital for a while.
    Wynn and the other department heads checked in. Their reports were relatively upbeat.
     The hospital was functioning almost normally, in spite of the heat. Maintenance workers
     were picking up debris, taking down floodgates, and patching holes in the roof exposed
     when the wind ripped away ducts and flashing. Kitchen employees were handing out Styrofoam
     cups filled with scrambled eggs and bacon. (The sight of low-wage cooks tending the
     stoves in the swelter with tied-up hair and cut-off sleeves and scrub pants had awed
     one executive who came down to the kitchen seeking extra food for a patient. An employee
     turned and asked, “What you need, baby?” as if it were any other day.)
    Feeding not only the patients but also everyone else, it was thought, might help calm
     the hundreds of family members and hospital neighbors who had taken shelter at Memorial
     and were getting antsy. With downed trees and power lines on the streets and reports
     of flooding only blocks away, it wasn’t safe for people to leave, though many were
     trying. Some headed to a darkened Winn-Dixie supermarket about eight blocks away and
     returned, arms laden with diapers, food, and drinks. One described this as “soul surviving, surviving for the soul.” Others considered it looting.
    After the meeting broke up, a memo went out to reinforce what the command team had
     decided: “Incident Command has declared Survival Mode for Memorial Medical Center.”
    All staff and physicians were instructed to stay at the hospital. Family members were
     advised to stay too. The hospital could expect flooding. There would be no elective
     surgery and no MRIs, PET scans, or CTs.Medically