Former director of New Orleans hospital recounts Katrina's challenges

Published: 2006-08-30

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (CNS) -- Last August, Dr. Jeanne James Jordan, the medical director at Tulane University Hospital in downtown New Orleans, watched news reports with other hospital staff employees as Hurricane Katrina approached the Gulf Coast. "We have been faced with many threats of hurricanes in the past, but after watching the path of the hurricane on the news, we realized this one was not going somewhere else," Jordan told members of the Nashville Catholic Business Women's League during their Aug. 16 meeting in Nashville. "We practiced for a disaster such as this many times, but it was the first time we were really faced with one," said Jordan, who now works in Nashville as a consultant for Hospital Corporation of America. The Tulane Medical Center sustained extensive damage as the water level rose several feet through the first floor of the hospital, including the emergency room, cafeteria, pharmacy and other diagnostic departments. "With no power and civil unrest, we had to relocate everyone," Jordan said.

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