NFPA Journal - May/June 2019 - 14
Feedback
A man awaits treatment outside the San Juan Regional Medical
Center in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria in 2017. Large-scale
natural hazards such as hurricanes can pose serious threats to
backup systems in hospitals, including emergency power systems.
To the editor:
After reading your recent coverage of
last year's Camp Fire in NFPA Journal
["Old & In Harm's Way" and "135 Minutes," January/February], our thoughts
went back to the Irma and Maria hurricane disasters in Puerto Rico.
As consulting engineers in Puerto
Rico, we have tried to stay ahead of
the disasters that have caused so much
pain for our country. Long before Irma
and Maria, we decided that hospitals required total emergency power
backup, and in 1981 we designed our
first emergency power system for the
Manati Regional Hospital. We have
designed total energy emergency systems for four existing hospitals and two
14 | NFPA JOURNAL * M A Y / J U N E 2 0 1 9
new hospitals in Puerto Rico, and all of
them faired very well in the aftermath
of the hurricanes. The impact on hospitals of Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and
Hurricane Katrina in 2005 underscored
our decisions regarding emergency
power backup.
One of those facilities, the Adult's
University Hospital at the San Juan
Regional Medical Center, the island's
main health facility, has an emergency power system designed for two
2,500KW Caterpillar engine generator
sets with 20,000 gallons of diesel fuel.
The generators powered the hospital at
4.16KV voltage. It was the only hospital
self-operating without assistance following the hurricanes at the San Juan
Medical Center.
In NFPA 70®, National Electrical
Code®, Article 517 on health care facilities is obsolete in its requirements for
emergency power in hospitals and must
be revised. Weather conditions for both
tropical and temperate regions are predicted to alter drastically due to climate
change, a condition that will require
hospitals to be energy sustainable. In
natural disasters, hospitals must not
depend upon power companies to
TELL US WHAT YOU THINK Email your letters to editor@nfpa.org, or mail them to Editor,
NFPA Journal, 1 Batterymarch Park, Quincy, Massachusetts, 02169. Please include your title,
company or organization affiliation, and where you're based. NFPA Journal reserves the right to
edit letters and comments for content and length.
REUTERS
Natural disasters and emergency
power systems
NFPA Journal - May/June 2019
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - May/June 2019
Contents
NFPA Journal - May/June 2019 - Cover1
NFPA Journal - May/June 2019 - Cover2
NFPA Journal - May/June 2019 - 1
NFPA Journal - May/June 2019 - 2
NFPA Journal - May/June 2019 - 3
NFPA Journal - May/June 2019 - 4
NFPA Journal - May/June 2019 - 5
NFPA Journal - May/June 2019 - Contents
NFPA Journal - May/June 2019 - 7
NFPA Journal - May/June 2019 - 8
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NFPA Journal - May/June 2019 - Cover3
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