St. Joseph’s/Candler Hospital in Savannah, Ga., prepares for potential hurricanes by tracking storms while coordinating efforts with other groups, according to an article on the WSAV3 website.

According to St. Joseph’s emergency preparedness manager Bob Staples, the hospital uses five condition levels to determine what kind of response they need based on how many hours away the storm is from making landfall. 

Once the storm is 60-42 hours away, the hospital starting deciding who needs to be evacuated. If the storm isn’t strong enough to warrant evacuation, the hospital still discourage family members from staying with their loved ones.

“It puts more people in harms way and dependent on the strike and severity of the hurricane, the damage it would bring, we may have to stretch our resources so we’d want to be able to have that for our staff and patients.”

Read the article.