Web Exclusive: Vanderbilt Radiation Oncology Department damaged in May floods

By Nicole Napoli, publications specialist

For the basement-housed radiation oncology department at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, what started as a typical Mother’s Day weekend in Nashville, Tenn., quickly turned to disaster as 20 inches of rain poured on the city in a span of about 36 hours.

By the morning of May 2, 2010, more than a foot of water covered all 20,000 square feet of the department, putting all four of their external beam treatment machines, CT and conventional simulators, and approximately 60 computers under water.

“The entire department was essentially destroyed,” Arnold Malcolm, M.D., interim chair of the department of radiation oncology, said. Dr. Malcolm was trapped at home during the early hours of the flooding and helped to manage the response via telephone.

While the flood waters receded quickly, the damage had been done. More than 4 feet of drywall had to be torn out, furniture had to be removed and engineers were brought in to tear down all five linear accelerators to replace the waterlogged wiring that was unsalvageable. Records for patients currently being treated were saved, but the records for other patients were destroyed as they were stored below the waterline. The clean up began immediately.

“The university was very efficient in cleaning out the department,” Dr. Malcolm said.

While the department’s physical damage was vast, staff had to focus their attention on continuing treatments for the 80 patients a day who were receiving radiation at the center.

The cancer center has two satellite centers, in Clarksville, Tenn., about 60 miles away, and Franklin, Tenn., which is 25 miles away. Each center had one linear accelerator and their own 35 patients a day to treat but agreed to take on the Nashville patients. To compensate for the extra patients, staff worked seven days a week from 6:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. the next morning.

“We used vans to transport patients to the centers for two and a half weeks,” Dr. Malcolm said. “Everybody has been working around the clock.”

Some patients who needed specialized forms of treatment were sent to clinics outside the Vanderbilt system, but the majority was able to be treated in Vanderbilt centers.

Five weeks after the flood there is a lot of work left to be done, but things are starting to get back to normal at the cancer center.

“I think we’ve reached the other side of the shore; we’re drying out,” he said.

The center is now back to its normal operating hours and as of press time four treatment machines were operational with one scheduled to be working this week. The clinic area is not open, so patients have to be met at the entrance to the cancer center and escorted down to the treatment rooms.

The flooded computers have been replaced, but desks to put them on are sparse. New furniture is expected in the next week or two and for now staff is making do with what is available.

“We have some people working on the floor,” Dr. Malcolm said.

Once the repairs to the department are complete, the staff will have a brain storming session to determine what could be done to better prepare next time.

“There is a lot of damage that could not have been prevented, but we still need to prepare,” he said. “We learned not to put certain things on the floor and to only put nonessential things close to the ground. This was supposedly a 500-year flood, but you never know.”