MUSC 'weathers' Hurricane Matthew

A well-oiled machine may be the best way to describe MUSC’s highly coordinated response to Hurricane Matthew, the once Category 4 hurricane that forced evacuations from Florida to North Carolina, making landfall Saturday morning on the South Carolina coast as a Category 1, flooding downtown Charleston and leaving thousands in the area without power.

Approximately 1,000 employees were designated to remain through the storm, and according to Wayne Brannan, director of Risk Management, the preparation, awareness and team efforts of the MUSC family made all the difference in the outcome.

“We were walking around campus with our insurance adjusters, and they were in awe of what this team did to save this campus. It was amazing. Our team literally saved this institution millions of dollars.”

Brannan said a great deal of planning and preparation started well before the storm was near the U.S. “We started planning the weekend prior to the storm. Monday night at 5 o’clock, we said, ‘This is serious — we’ve got to get ready.’ Everybody took it extremely seriously. Everyone prepared for the worst, and though we didn’t get the worst, thank God, we were ready for it.”

MUSC staff worked around the clock, he said, to make sure MUSC was in good shape.  “Everybody pulled together to do what needed to be done: engineers, facilities, managers, nursing staff. Everybody put aside their normal job duties to make sure we were ready. We were up and running the next day. It was pretty neat to see.”

Two command centers operated behind the scenes to ensure things operated seamlessly: The operations command center, run by Brannan, and the executive command center, under the leadership of Matt Wain, chief operating officer of MUSC Health. The centers served to deploy personnel and resources to necessary areas and keep all parties apprised of timely information. They worked in tandem, staying ahead of all hurricane announcements and any possible crises.

Brannan said keeping a level head in the midst of everything going on was critical. He praised his counterpart, Wain, as having remained calm during the storm and doing a great job.

In the end, preparing for the worst paid off. “I had more confidence in our inner structure than ever before,” said Brannan. “I know our ability to maintain the hospital. Our generators are well above sea level — three stories up. Our switch gear is up now. I wasn’t worried about rising water because everything is where it needs to be.”