HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Hospitals across the Houston area are swamped in the wake of Hurricane Beryl.
The Texas Division of Emergency Management said 12 hospitals in Harris County remained in internal disaster mode on Thursday but didn’t name any of the hospitals.
While a Harris Health spokesperson said neither Ben Taub nor LBJ Hospital is among those hospitals, he said the situation at both facilities is dire.
Ben Taub saw 320 emergency room patients Wednesday, 34% more than on its typical high-volume day.
Harris Health said many of the patients are seeking dialysis since their normal providers still don’t have power.
“We had a police officer who was shot in the leg, and when the mayor went down to see him the next day, he still didn’t have a room,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Many hospitals have been unable to discharge patients to hot homes, creating a backlog of ambulances waiting to drop new patients off.
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State officials said they’d heard of delays exceeding three hours. To help ease the strain on hospitals, NRG Park is taking some of the discharged patients and will eventually house as many as 250. The state also sent in 25 ambulances from other parts of Texas.
Yet none of that will help Gunter Grigo, who has diabetes and whose Greenspoint apartment still doesn’t have power even though the other half of his complex does.
He’s been storing his three-month supply of insulin in an ice-filled cooler in his car trunk and said he’ll probably have to sleep at his office.
“I couldn’t sleep in here,” Grigo said, pointing to his apartment. “No way. I’d probably die. I think I would. This heat is just unbearable.”
