With Hurricane Season Approaching, Florida Health Centers Assess Readiness

Editor’s Note: This post is the first of NACHC’s three-part series highlighting health center readiness in response to the upcoming hurricane season.

With hurricane season here, Florida is bracing for the worst. The state ranks sixth in the country for most weather-related power outages over the past 20 years. Powering through weather-related disasters carries far-reaching public health considerations. Health centers must be able to keep their doors open to respond to local health needs after catastrophic weather events. That is why the Florida Association of Community Health Centers (FACHC) assessed which sites have emergency power sources and found that over half, nearly 60 percent of 800 health center sites, do not have a back-up power system on site.