Hospital evacuations forced by Katrina, Irene and Sandy — along with warnings of intense heat waves, increased incidences of asthma and allergies, and expanding ranges of disease vectors — have made healthcare professionals more aware of how vulnerable the industry is to the effects of climate change, according to an article on the Think Progress website.

“When you look at what happened in Hurricane Sandy, some of the hospitals in downtown Manhattan were the first to go down,” Gary Cohen, president of Health Care Without Harm, said in the article. "They should be the last buildings standing. But they weren’t designed in any way to address climate change effects.”

It’s these evacuations that Hubert Murray, sustainable initiatives manager for Partners Healthcare in Boston, wants to avoid, according to the article. 

Murray was instrumental in “future-proofing” Boston’s Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. 

Spaulding was built near the bay — a location that may seem counter-intuitive to climate preparedness, but that Murray said made the most sense in terms of cost and ease of access for city patients — so its ground floor is raised 30 inches above the current 500-year flood level and 42 inches above the 100-year flood level, the article said.

It has operable windows that, in the case of an air conditioning failure, can be opened. The landscaping acts as a sort of reef, created to provide a certain level of protection from storm surge. And its electrical equipment is on the roof instead of the basement.

Murray said these climate-proofing measures added about half a percent to the total cost of the building. 

Read the article.