WOBO is pleased to provide a link, from Fathom,to this flood related article that reflects cause for concern

What you don’t know can hurt you. Meet the 170+ hospitals at risk

In 2024, Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, Tennessee, was wiped out by a flash flood. Ceilings collapsed, walls caved, and several meters of roiling water surrounded and consumed the building. Staff and patients ran to the roof for evacuation, with everyone thankfully making it to safety. But the hospital was essentially brand new, built in 2018. Why was it so devastated?

It turns out that it was built on a 500-year floodplain beside a large river. While concerning, this situation is far from unique. The same kind of dangerous, significant, existential-level flooding threatens 171 other hospitals in the US, found a recent study by KFF Health News in collaboration with Fathom. The study explored the flood risk facing US hospitals, overlaying Fathom’s 100-year flood risk data onto mapping of 7,000+ inpatient facilities across the US to identify regions of overlap.

The results? At-risk hospitals are scattered across the US, both inland and coastal, urban and rural. Many are children’s or small rural hospitals, trauma centers, or long-term care facilities for older or disabled patients. Many provide essential round-the-clock services to rural communities. Many are at least 25 miles from any other hospital that could help.

The study also compared the data with flood hazard maps from FEMA. Around one-third of the 171 at-risk hospitals have no indication of them being in 100-year flood plains. FEMA flood maps, already based on historical flows rather than dynamic, up-to-date, predictive data, are rapidly becoming “snapshots in time” – snapshots that don’t reflect the real and rising risk facing our critical assets.

FEMA and other US federal agencies are suffering in the current political climate. Funding has been cut, floodplain management is becoming siloed at state level, and the ability to prepare for extreme weather events is fast diminishing. This hints at a worrying future – because the first step in becoming prepared for what’s coming is knowing that it’s coming. Read the full story.