Tampa General Hospital adding AquaFence again this year to prevent storm surge
Tampa General Hospital discussed its preparations for the hurricane season.
The plans include the AquaFence, which protected the hospital from a potentially devastating storm surge last year.
This year, TGH will also install an interior AquaFence to protect critical areas on the lower level.
TAMPA - Tampa General Hospital leaders laid out their plan to protect the hospital during the 2025 hurricane season, during a news conference and tour on Wednesday.
The AquaFence, which is TGH's first line of defense, successfully prevented Hurricane Helene's storm surge from flooding the hospital. It can reach up nine feet high, is bolted into the ground and protects against a 15-foot storm and 140-mile-an-hour winds.
Dustin Pasteur, the hospital's Senior Vice President of Facilities and Construction, said more water helps strengthen the fence.
"The more water you get, the stronger the system becomes because it's compressing all of these gaskets more and more together and down to the road tighter," Pasteur said.
Pasteur said TGH will be adding a new interior AquaFence this year to protect departments on the lower level, including the emergency center, surgery services and the sterile procession department.
What they're saying
"We're bringing in a seven-and-a-half-foot AquaFence to put in the halls of the hospital and around the sterile processing department, because the first floor of the hospital is at 12 feet," Pasteur explained. "If you had a storm surge more than 15 feet, you could end up with a few feet of water in the hospital. This will protect that department."
While the AquaFence is the first layer of protection, there are several more that have been added in recent years: workers will cover the manholes around the facility; there are emergency water wells for clean drinking water; and the hospital has an emergency generator room that raised 30 feet above ground to keep it safe from flooding.
Hospital administrators also ensure enough supplies are brought in prior to a storm.
"We receive over 10 semi-truck loads of supplies, including medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, food, water, linen, to make sure we can care for our patients," said Mark Campbell, Vice President of Supply Chain.
It's all done to ensure the hospital keeps this promise:
"Tampa General is open to serve this community and will remain that way before and after the storm," Tony Venezia, Vice President of TGH Public Safety.
That's important, according to Pasteur, because TGH takes care of so many critical care patients, they can't be evacuated to other hospitals in Florida.
READ: Hillsborough County seeking input on spending $709M in hurricane recovery funds
"There's not enough critical care beds in the region to take those patients, but also logistically, you can't transport them safely or even with enough time, so you just can't evacuate," he said. "Instead, we've put enormous amount of thought and resources into protecting this campus here in storms, in floods and any other kind of disasters that we can contemplate because there's nowhere else for these patients to go. We're the place to take care of the most specialized cases, and we have to put in the measures to make sure we can do that no matter what."
Big picture view
Since the AquaFence was installed in 2019, TGH has needed to use it every year to protect the campus during a storm.
As a result of the yearly need, the hospital plans to install it ahead of time. It'll be in place by August and stay installed until around Thanksgiving.
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Information for this story was gathered by FOX 13's Aaron Mesmer.
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