Nantucket (Mass.) Cottage Hospital, which is scheduled to open by the end of the year, is being built to withstand the toughest of natural disasters, including Category 5 hurricanes, according to the Cape Cod Times.
The 106,000-square-foot hospital is being built according to hurricane design specifications established by Miami-Dade County in Florida, which maintains some of the strictest rules nationwide, the report states.
By adhering to Florida's codes rather than Massachusetts', the 14-bed hospital will be able to withstand winds of up to 185 miles per hour like those of Hurricane Irma, which damaged and destroyed a number of healthcare facilities and businesses when it struck the Florida coastline last fall. The facility's 5-foot-by-5-foot concrete footings are fortified by mesh, stormwatch windows and a double-hulled exterior building shell.
The redesigned hospital will also host analog and digital phone lines as well as access to satellite phones, allowing hospital officials to exchange information with emergency medical services on and off the island, the report states.
"If we don't have the [medical] helicopters flying or the boats running, [the hospital is] the only place to get medical care," Janet Schulte, director of the department of culture and tourism for the island of Nantucket, who toured the hospital, told the publication.
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