Skip to main content

Hurricane

On Monday, August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. Outside of the affected areas of TX, LA, MS, and AL, GA received the largest number of these evacuees, approximately 125,000. By August 30, 2005, GA began receiving a total of approximately 1,300 NDMS patients from flights arriving at Dobbins Air Force Base. Within days, Georgia established 13 shelters for evacuees. Crowded shelters can increase the risk for communicable diseases. In addition, many evacuees left behind needed medications, thus increasing the risk for chronic disease exacerbations.

 

Objective

To assess public health needs among sheltered evacuees, the GA Department of Human Resources, Division of Public Health recommended daily surveillance.

Referenced File
Submitted by elamb on

Surveillance strategies following major natural disasters have varied widely with respect to methods used to collect and analyze data. Following Hurricane Katrina, public health concerns included infectious disease outbreaks, injuries, mental health and exacerbation of preexisting chronic conditions resulting from unprecedented population displacement and disruption of public health services and health-care infrastructure.

 

Objective

This paper describes the public health surveillance response to hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and surrounding Parishes; particularly illustrating the methods, results, and lessons learned for implementing passive, active and electronic syndromic surveillance systems during a major disaster.

Referenced File
Submitted by elamb on

Accurately gauging the health status of a population during an event of public health significance (e.g. hurricanes, H1N1 2009 pandemic) in support of emergency response and situation awareness efforts can be a challenge for established public health surveillance systems in terms of geographic and population coverage as well as the appropriateness of health indicators. The demand for timely, accurate, and event-specific data can require the rapid development of new data assets to “fill-in” existing information gaps to better characterize the scope, scale, magnitude, and population health impact of a given event within a very narrow time-window. Such new data assets may be concurrently under development and evaluation while being used to support response efforts. Recent examples include the “drop-in” surveillance processes deployed at evacuation centers following Hurricane Katrina1 and the illness and injury surveillance systems established for response workers during the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill response. During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic response, CDC acquired access to data from several national-level health information systems that previously had been un-vetted as public health information sources. These sources provided data extracts from massive administrative or electronic medical records (EMR) based in hospital and primary care settings. It was hoped that such data could supplement existing influenza surveillance systems and aid in the characterization of the pandemic. Few of these new data sources had formal documentation or concise information on the underlying populations and geographies represented.

 

Objective

To describe data management and analytic processes undertaken to rapidly acquire and use previously unavailable data during a public health emergency response.

Submitted by hparton on

In late summer 2017, the United States endured two severe hurricanes back to back. On August 25, 2017, Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas and southwest Louisiana, dumping more than 19 trillion gallons of rain. On September 10, 2017, 20 days later, Hurricane Irma landed in Florida, leading residents across the Florida peninsula to evacuate inland and out of the path of the storm. Although Tennessee was far from the eye of the storms, state health officials knew residents from both states could choose to shelter in Tennessee.

Submitted by elamb on

Hurricane Harvey made landfall along the Texas coast on August 25th, 2017 as a Category 4 storm. It is estimated that the ensuing rainfall caused record flooding of at least 18 inches in 70% of Harris County. Over 30,000 residents were displaced and 50 deaths occurred due to the devastation. At least 53 temporary refuge shelters opened in various parts of Harris County to accommodate displaced residents. On the evening of August 29th, Harris County and community partners set up a 10,000 bed mega-shelter at NRG Center, in efforts to centralize refuge efforts. Harris County Public Health (HCPH) was responsible for round-the-clock surveillance to monitor resident health status and prevent communicable disease outbreaks within the mega-shelter. This was accomplished through direct and indirect resident health assessments, along with coordinated prevention and disease control efforts. Despite HCPH’s 20-day active response, and identification of two relatively small but potentially worrisome communicable disease outbreaks, no large-scale disease outbreaks occurred within the NRG Center mega-shelter.

Objective:

1) Describe HCPH’s disease surveillance and prevention activities within the NRG Center mega-shelter;

2) Present surveillance findings with an emphasis on sharing tools that were developed and may be utilized for future disaster response efforts;

3) Discuss successes achieved, challenges encountered, and lessons learned from this emergency response.

Submitted by elamb on

In this panel, the presenters will discuss their perspective in responding to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Hurricane Harvey made landfall on August 25th and over the course of 4 days dropped approximately 27 trillion gallons of water on Texas and Louisiana. The flooding that ensued was unprecedented and forced over 13,000 people into shelters. These individuals needed to have their basic needs -food, shelter, clothing, sanitation- met as well as their physical and mental health needs. The George R Brown Conference Center (GRB) and NRG Stadium Center were set up as mega-shelters to house shelterees. Hurricane Irma made landfall on September 10th in the Florida Keys as a Category 4 Hurricane. The Hurricane caused 72 deaths and forced thousands of people into shelters. These weather events created novel challenges for local response efforts. Decision makers needed timely and actionable data, including surveillance data.

Objective:

In this panel, attendees will learn about how disaster surveillance was conducted in response to Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, as well as the role of CDC at the federal level in supporting local response efforts. By hearing and discussing the challenges faced and solutions identified, attendees will be better able to respond in the event of a low-frequency/high-consequence disaster occurring within their jurisdiction.

Submitted by elamb on

During an emergency, the state of Georgia depends on public health staff and volunteers to respond. It is imperative that staff are safe before, during and after deployment. Emergency response workers must be protected from the hazardous conditions that disasters and other emergencies create1. In October 2016 and September 2017, Hurricanes Matthew and Irma caused widespread evacuation of Georgia residents, initiating a tremendous sheltering effort. Hundreds of public health responders were deployed to assist with sheltering and other aspects of the response. DPH rapidly developed a novel electronic Responder Safety, Tracking and Resilience module, which was used to track public health responders and monitor their health and safety while deployed.

Objective:

To better understand the importance of monitoring responders during public health emergencies and to learn how the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) developed and deployed an electronic responder monitoring tool.

Submitted by elamb on

Syndromic surveillance is the monitoring of symptom combinations (i.e., syndromes) or other indicators within a population to inform public health actions. The Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) collects emergency department (ED) data from more than 70 hospitals across Tennessee to support statewide syndromic surveillance activities. Hospitals in Tennessee typically provide data within 48 hours of a patient encounter. While syndromic surveillance often supplements disease- or condition-specific surveillance, it can also provide general situational awareness about emergency department patients during an event or response. During Hurricanes Harvey (continental US landfall on August 25, 2017) and Irma (continental US landfall on September 10, 2017), TDH supported all hazards situational awareness using the Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics (ESSENCE) in the BioSense Platform supported by the National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP). The volume of out-of-state patients in Tennessee was monitored to assess the impact on the healthcare system and any geographic- or hospital-specific clustering of out-of-state patients within Tennessee. Results were included in daily State Health Operations Center (SHOC) situation reports and shared with agency response partners such as the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA).

Objective:

To demonstrate the use of ESSENCE in the BioSense Platform to monitor out-of-State patients seeking emergency healthcare in Tennessee during Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

Submitted by elamb on

EDCC data provides an opportunity for capturing the early mental health impact of disaster events at the community level, and to track their impact over time. However, while rapid mental health assessment can facilitate a better understanding of the acute post-disaster period and aid early identification of persons at long-term risk,1 determining how wide a net to effectively capture the critical range of mental health sub-categories has not yet been clearly defined. This project creates a comprehensive set of mental health sub-category keywords, and applies them to evaluate short- and long-term trends in postHurricane Sandy mental health outcomes in New York State.

Objective

To define mental health keywords using daily hospital emergency department chief complaint (EDCC) data during and after Hurricane Sandy 2) To track short- and long-term trends in mental health EDCCs. 3) To compare mental health EDCCs in affected counties to the rest of the New York State population.

Submitted by uysz on

CO poisoning is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in disaster and post-disaster situations, when widespread power outages most likely occur (1, 2). The NYSDOH Syndromic Surveillance System receives daily ED visit chief complaint data from 140 NYS (excluding New York City) hospitals. Daily power outage data are available from the NYS Department of Public Service (NYSDPS). These data can be used to estimate the risk of CO-EDs and provide useful information for public health situational awareness and emergency response management during disaster events.

Objective

1) To identify carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning in three most affected New York State (NYS) counties (Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester) during and immediately after Hurricane Sandy with hospital emergency department (ED) chief complaint data reported daily to the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH). 2) To explore the relationship between power outage and the numbers of CO-related ED visits (CO-EDs).

Submitted by Magou on
Subscribe to Hurricane