" Every hurricane I can remember there have been hospitals that had generators in the basement, and every time everyone clucks at how dumb that was"
When I entered Clinical Perfusion school at Texas Heart Institute in 1984 (learning to operate the heart-lung bypass pump for open-heart surgery), the program director told us a story how, in 1961, he was participating in an emergency open heart procedure during Hurricane Carla. When the power failed the emergency generators in the basement started. when the basement filled with rain the generators failed and he finished the case using a little hand crank to keep the patient perfused and alive. This is not a new situation.