Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink Page B

they
     had to spend, millions of dollars in at least onecase. The initiative never went anywhere, and that was why, the day before Katrina
     made landfall, the federal emergency management officer had been told that all but
     two of the hospitals in New Orleans had either generators, electrical switches, or
     both at ground level.
    That was the case at Memorial. After Hurricane Ivan’s near miss in September 2004,
     the hospital’s leaders had reviewed hurricane plans. Eric Yancovich himself attended
     a meeting with the US Army Corps of Engineers and studied government storm-surge models—known
     as “SLOSH” for sea, lake, and overland surges from hurricanes—which estimated the
     height of a wall of water driven onto land by a hurricane’s winds. He learned that
     if a Category Four or Five storm hit the city and caused the lake or the river to
     flood it, twelve to fifteen feet of water could rise up around Memorial, which sat
     three feet below sea level.
    By hand, on a piece of lined paper after the Army Corps of Engineers meeting, Yancovich
     had sketched out the elevation of various hospital entrances and critical outdoor
     equipment in relation to the center of Magnolia Street, a narrow road perpendicular
     to Napoleon Avenue that ran along the back side of the hospital. His calculations
     showed it would take less than four feet of street flooding for water to flow over
     the loading dock and into the hospital. He knew that while the hospital’s backup generators
     on the second floor were at a safe elevation, some critical parts of the emergency
     power distribution system were located below ground level or only inches to a few
     feet above it.
    The story this told was clear and grim. “Based on these readings it won’t take much
     water in height to disable the majority of the Medical Center,” Yancovich had written
     in a note to his supervisor several months before Katrina. He predicted that power
     would be lost in the main hospital and all patients would have to be moved to the
     newer Clara Wing, where he believed the electrical circuitry was better protected.
    Yancovich’s department had taken a few steps to harden the hospital’s defenses, including
     adding floodgates and raising the vent for the underground diesel fuel tanks. But
     more extensive work needed to bedone. Yancovich had recommended elevating basement and ground-level emergency power
     transfer switches and the pumps that supplied most of the hospital with medical air
     and vacuum suction, needed by patients with respiratory problems. A partial bid for
     the electrical work came to more than a quarter of a million dollars. “Due to the
     lack of capital, I don’t anticipate anything being approved right now,” Yancovich
     had concluded in his recent memo. “I’ll keep it on file for future consideration.”
    The backup generator system was only as robust as its weakest part. Now, with floodwaters
     heading for Memorial, it was the hospital’s Achilles’ heel. They all needed to get
     out of the hospital. Yancovich knew it. Susan Mulderick knew it. She advised Memorial
     CEO René Goux, who spoke with his bosses at Tenet, in Dallas. He told them that evacuation
     looked likely.

    “WHERE’S VINCE?”
    The nurse asking about Dr. Anna Pou’s husband looked concerned. Vince Panepinto had
     surprised Pou the previous evening by showing up at the hospital. A security guard
     had paged her through the overhead speakers. Panepinto had spent the night with Pou
     and the surgical nurses in the endoscopy suite, his tall frame squeezed onto a little
     stretcher. He charmed the nurses with his dark good looks, and they agreed Pou had
     done well after the breakup with her former boyfriend.
    Panepinto left the hospital that morning to take care of their recently purchased
     home about a mile from Memorial. He had wanted Pou to join him, but she still had
     patients at the hospital, and the staff was not supposed to leave. “I’ll be