Amid the evacuation of approximately 1,500 patients from Houston-area hospitals, officials are saying it may be weeks before the facilities are back to business as usual, according to an article on the STAT website.

The SouthEast Texas Regional Advisory Council (SETRAC) estimates that nearly two dozen hospitals have evacuated patients by ambulance and airplane.

“The storm was so huge it was uncertain what hospitals might be in harm’s way,” said Darrell Pile, chief executive officer of SETRAC. 

Had they known Harvey would grow into a Category 4 storm, Darrell Pile, chief executive officer of SETRAC, said, they would have staged evacuations three days in advance. 

Inaddition to the evacuations, around 25 hospitals declared an “internal disaster” — a status that reflects a hospital facing problems in carrying out normal daily operations — that allowed SETRAC to pass along timely information along to first responders who could, in turn, divert patients toward care at hospitals capable of treating them.

Pile said he hadn't hasn’t heard of any hospitals that were in danger of closing for good. It’s because of that he believes nearly all Houston-area hospitals will be fully up and running by the end of September.

Read the article.