Here's to the Heroes

Outside, the rain streamed down in torrents, deluging the bayous, flooding the streets and highways around the Texas Medical Center.

Inside Memorial Hermann Hospital and Memorial Hermann Children's Hospital, televisions mumbled in monotone, monitors beeped, pagers went off, elevator doors opened and closed, and here and there were the occasional whispered conversations, bursts of soft laughter, and the click of heels in the hallways. Another regular Friday night.

Hours later came the first blips as hundreds of thousands of gallons of water poured into the hospital's lower levels, quickly choking out power and sending the emergency generators into action. Administration declared an internal disaster at 1:50 a.m. At that time, few knew of the external disaster already under way in the community.

When the emergency generators halted around 4 a.m. that Saturday morning and darkness descended on the hospitals, patients, families and staff, the true nature of this emergency made itself known. It was a rain of unprecedented proportions, a weekend of extraordinary heroics - a historical event that will not soon be forgotten.

While Memorial Hermann Hospital and Memorial Hermann Children's will not reopen until mid-July, their employee partners and medical staff physicians have been working in Memorial Hermann sister hospitals throughout the greater Houston area and at Ben Taub General Hospital in the Texas Medical Center. Little did anyone know that out of such a hardship would come such an opportunity for growth. The Memorial Hermann family, with help from the community, faced the greatest disaster in their history ... and triumphed.

Here's to the heroes.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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URL: http://www.tmc.edu/tmcnews/07_01_01/page_15.html