Keeping infrastructure strong–like retrofitting hospitals for flooding or earthquake protection–can take significant investments. The infrastructure is what blunts the hazard. I like to think of preparedness on three levels–the infrastructure, the organization and the person. One of mine is that whoever’s in the immediate vicinity in a disaster is going to make the biggest difference, and that means we all have a stake in preparedness. People who read the book come away with different lessons.
What were the biggest lessons learned from the situation at Memorial Hospital? I kept trying to sneak things in, and the editor said, “Save it for the book.” I realized she was right. More information came in every day as publication loomed. But even that meant leaving out some of the most important details illuminating what had happened in this storm-struck hospital and why. When you first started covering the events at Memorial Hospital, it was for a magazine article. At what point did you realize that this story would span beyond your article?įink: The article was 13,000 words, which is pretty long for a magazine. When I read Five Days at Memorial, it was really a reality check as to how critical it is that we ensure that public health departments and hospitals can adequately respond to threats as well as maintain an infrastructure to function during an emergency. Your experiences at Memorial are haunting for me as a public health professional, physician, and acting director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at CDC.
Fink’s book I had the opportunity to talk to her about and her thoughts on emergency preparedness. The book chronicles the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when thousands of people were trapped, without power, inside Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans in August 2005.Īfter reading Dr. Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital is a non-fiction book written by journalist Dr.
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