what do you do during a tornado?

allnurses Guide · Mar 13, 2009

"When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles scream and shout :yeah:

Hospitals in tornado prone areas should have a disaster plan in place. Most folks have not bothered to look at the plans since their orientation. During our fire drills, we have to be able to point out where all the gas shut offs are, where we would move people to, etc.

casi, ASN, RN · Mar 13, 2009

Shut all blinds and prepare to move patients into their bathrooms or hallways if things get hairy.

Also keep your fingers crossed that things don't get hairy.

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Mar 13, 2009

I live in a certain region of Tornado Alley (Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas) where tornadoes touch down frequently, yet the structures have no basements or any sort of protection.

Anyhow, I believe the facility calls a "Code Gray" in the event of severe weather.

loricatus · Mar 13, 2009

I live in a certain region of Tornado Alley (Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas) where tornadoes touch down frequently, yet the structures have no basements or any sort of protection.
Anyhow, I believe the facility calls a "Code Gray" in the event of severe weather.

One hospital in Dallas I used to work for called it a 'Code Brown'. Had a good laugh in orientation when they said that. What is even funnier is that they had no idea why I laughed.

It is mostly called 'Code Gray' and I have heard that one other hospital uses 'Code Black'

Oh, and at least someone else thinks it is quite strange that they don't have basements here. I really wouldn't want to have a house collapse on me while I had a mattress over my head in the bathtub. Boy, do I miss basements.

Dalzac, LPN, LVN, RN · Mar 13, 2009

In Oklahoma City, my old hospital called it code Black. In ICU we close all the blinds and move the patients as close to the middle of the unit as we can. as far away frome the windows as possible. In 35 yrs I have only had to move them into the halls once. The biggest problem we had was we used the bear 7200 ventilators, If the power went off 3 times in a certain amount of time the vent would dump all the settings. One night in particular we had 5 vents and 4 nurses. We lost all of the vents. We bagged all the patients and a family member had to help us bag until RT (1) could reset all of the vents. Pretty hairy. When this happened the RT was in ER and brought the calvary ( help from ER).

Another bad bad time was the May 3 2001 tornado that killed 43 people. Our hospital was the closest to the disaster. I was at home which was usually 20 minutes away, and made it to the ER in 5 minutes after being called in for the catastrophe

I have lived in Oklahoma all my life. I have seen almost a dozen tornadoes Most of us that live here have had it hardwired into our systems about what to do in these things.

I think every part of the USA has its own demons. I did live in California for a short while and I was terrified enough to wet my drawers during the first earthquake I was in. I have also been visiting Florida during a hurricane, another experience I never want to repeat. To me tornadoes just don't scare me as much as other disasters. I just know how to find me a nice hidey hole.

mama_d, BSN, RN · Mar 13, 2009

I'm with Dalzac, if you grow up with it, you just know how to respond to it.

We have code grey for tornado watches, code black for warnings (a watch means conditions are favorable, a warning means one has actually been spotted by doppler or on the ground spotters).

You usually can tell when one of those kinds of storms is coming, and automatically start prioritizing things (at least I do)...move equipment around in the room so you can get the bed out easily, switch the IV pump to the bed pole instead of the freewheeling IV pole when appropriate, close all the blinds, get extra equipment out of the hallway, etc.

If we have a code grey, I let all the oriented patients that I have know what will happen if it gets upgraded to a code black. Patients all come into the hallway and all doors are shut. If there are tornado warnings in adjoining counties, it's not unusual that we'll get chairs set up in the hallways outside of our up ad lib patients' rooms so that they can just hop out of bed and scoot into the hall.

I've been unlucky enough to average at least one code black per year. We had one a few years ago where the tornado was only about 1.5 miles from the hospital; that was scary.

It's funny that you mention about earthquakes also Dalzac...we had one here in Missouri not too long ago, and noone had a clue what the heck we were supposed to do. It's not like those are common around here or anything. We all just stared at the pendant lights swinging back and forth and went "what the heck?" until it stopped. :)

bagladyrn, RN · Mar 13, 2009

At one hospital at which I contracted in Florida the code for an approaching tornado is a "Code Dorothy"! Kind of fun to think that someone in administration has a sense of humor.

Aneroo, LPN · Mar 13, 2009

To me tornadoes just don't scare me as much as other disasters. I just know how to find me a nice hidey hole.

No no no. :lol2: Give me a hurricane any day over a tornado warning. I'm horribly fascinated and terrified of these things at the same time.

At one hospital at which I contracted in Florida the code for an approaching tornado is a "Code Dorothy"! Kind of fun to think that someone in administration has a sense of humor.

:lol2:

We used HICS at the last hospital I was at. I don't remember the codes for them though. I do remember the hospital I worked at before, a code grey was a severe weather watch, and a code black was imminent severe weather (tornado). I think the HICS was code black and code black push (push everyone to the center).

I think I'd hide in radiology. :lol: If it'll stop radiation, maybe it'll hide flying debris.

RedWeasel, RN · May 24, 2011

We used to have to put patients in the hall, now we pull beds away from windows, and leave patients in rooms and shut the doors. Eek. We have to change that after seeing the videos of the Joplin hospital. All the windows are blown out and bedding, curtains and other things (mattresses) are hanging out of the window. Does anyone else have this as their policy? Scary. i will move my patients into the halls.

3dayRN · May 24, 2011

We have a policy to shut the blinds (unfortunately not all the blinds close). Hand out extra blankets to cover the patients and close the doors. I do not know what the staff does after that? The previous hospital I worked at there was a tornado warning and the supervisors and the doctors that were left in the hospital (this was 7p-7a shift) all went to the basement. We were told we could leave the floor if we wanted. We all stayed with our patients and continued checking on them. Seriously, our supervisor told us we could all leave the patients and go to the basement. We had someone trying to crawl out of bed and other confused patients. Luckily there was no tornado but I can't imagine everyone just leaving a floor full of patients.

RedWeasel, RN · May 24, 2011

I know! I just, after seeing Joplin's hospital....there is no way patients wouldn't be sucked out of the hospital! They need to be moved into the hallways! They moved them into the halls and that had to save hundreds of lives!