A Houston hospital stays afloat during extreme weather

Hospitals learned the lessons of Katrina


Texas Medical Center in Houston is the world’s largest medical complex. It has dozens of buildings, 106,000 employees who care for some 10 million patients per year.

After Hurricane Allison, Texas Medical Center in Houston added various engineering features to help withstand extreme weather, according to an article on the WBUR website.

First, they built a moat — a hydrostatic wall, about seven feet tall,  made from a mix of granite and a half-inch of glass. And outside that, an earthen berm.

There are pumps in this reverse moat to get rid of any water that makes it over. But then, even if all that fails, there are the flood doors.

Read the article.



October 10, 2019



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