Katrina

On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast of the United States. In the wake of unprecedented devastation, Carolina’s MED-1, the world’s first fully mobile, complete healthcare facility, was deployed to the disaster’s front lines.

Waveland and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
Where the eye of Katrina directly passed, 90% of residential and commercial structures were obliterated, including 102-bed Hancock Medical Center, which had six inches of mud in the second-floor operating room.

Duration: 7 weeks

Approximately 7400 patients

50-350 patients a day

MED-1 took residence in the parking lot of a Kmart in Waveland for a seven-week engagement as the central medical facility for three Mississippi counties. The unit soon received up to 350 patients daily, hosted multiple surgeries, and treated severe and manifold conditions, including deep space abscess, heart attack, stroke and lung disease.

After forty-nine days, MED-1 had cared for more than 7,500 patients and saved many lives at Katrina’s ground zero.