MARY REED

The Southeast Liver Clinic and Regional Research Institute was destroyed by the tornado. Dr. Mark Swaim has moved his clinic and research department down the street to temporary space at TransSouth Healthcare.

The physicians at West Tennessee Bone & Joint Clinic (WTBJC) were finishing up a board meeting in the early evening of Feb.5 when tornado sirens alerted them to approaching bad weather. They quickly headed for home.

Meanwhile, Dr. Paul Koerner, his wife and two children decided to ride out the approaching storm in the heavily protected MRI room at the Cancer Care Clinic of Jackson where he is a radiologist. Both clinics are in a medical area behind Regional Hospital in north Jackson.

In a stretch of destruction that started in west Madison County, an F-4 tornado bore down on north Jackson with the clinics in its path. The Koerners could feel the pressure in their ears as the storm passed overhead.

As news slowly emerged about major damage to Union University and other parts of north Jackson, WTBJC physicians knew their clinic was in the storm’s path. Dr. David Pearce drove back to the clinic to find it had minor damage. Unable to use his cell phone, he was able send text messages to the other physicians.

“We had some roof and window damage,” said Donna Klutts, practice administrator. “Compared to other clinics, we were blessed.”

Down the street, the Southeast Liver Clinic (SLC) and Regional Research Institute (RRI) were destroyed. Jackson Surgical Associates (JSA), Jackson Regional Women’s Center (JRWC), the clinic building shared by Dr. Ken Warren and Dr. Stephen Goodwin and the TransSouth Healthcare (TSH) billing office and laboratory were among buildings suffering major damage. Several other clinics, including Bone & Joint and TSH’s clinic building where Dr. Bob Souder practices, had minor damage.

The tornado with winds up to 170 miles per hour killed two people, sent more than 50 people to hospitals and created an estimated 100 million dollars in damages. Heavy rains that followed the tornado only added to the damage.

Amid the destruction to clinics were some bright spots. Though his clinic building was missing its second floor, Warren, a family practice physician, found that his computer system and his active patient charts were okay.

Next door, the SLC building was destroyed, but the center of the building, where patient records were stored, was intact, said George Barham, business manager for TSH. “Not one single record was damaged or even one piece of paper from the charts disturbed. It was amazing.”

In the shock of the destruction the next morning, physicians and clinic staff began the process of getting back to the practice of medicine. Patients were called. Restoration specialists were contacted. Crews boarded up broken windows and covered roof holes with bright blue tarps. Chain saws echoed up and down the street as fallen trees were cut up and removed. Several office managers started looking for temporary clinic locations.

Offers of help came from many places. West Tennessee Healthcare, for example, gave WTBJC a generator that allowed the clinic to turn on the lights and see post-op patients the afternoon after the tornado. Regional Hospital offered its fourth floor as a temporary clinic home for obstetrician/gynecologists Dr. Keith Micetich, Dr. Sandra Boxell and Dr. Lane Williams of JRWC. Jackson-Madison County General Hospital absorbed the laboratory functions that were done at TSH’s destroyed lab.

At TSH’s billing office, the computer, network system and billing staff were immediately moved to Jackson Energy Authority’s downtown bunker/control center. The computer system will remain in the bunker, but personnel eventually will be housed in new office space.

With its minor damage and the loaned generator, WTBJC had a busy clinic day on Thursday. Electricity returned on Friday.

Many of the other clinics were back seeing patients at normal clinic hours the next Monday.

“Our biggest issue was really getting electricity back,” says Tim Cook, office manager of Cancer Care Center. “It took until mid-day Saturday to get it back on.” The clinic had some window and roof damage.

• JSA resumed regular clinic hours across town in extra space at Medical Specialty Clinic, 27 Medical Center Drive. It will take several months to repair damage to its building.
• Warren and Goodwin estimate it also will be several months before they can use their clinic building again. Warren, with his nurse practitioners Cindy Ross and Diane Butler, moved across the street to WTBJC which had some extra room. Goodwin, an internal medicine physician, is practicing in clinic space on the second floor of Sports, Orthopedics and Spine at 569 Skyline Drive.
• With SLC completely destroyed, Dr. Mark Swaim moved his clinic and research department down the street to TSH Clinic.
• Dr. John Woods reopened his internal medicine clinic at 207 B. Stonebridge after getting electricity back. His clinic suffered minor damage, while other buildings around him were heavily damaged.
• JRWC was seeing patients on Regional’s fourth floor and found temporary office space at the Medical Building on Hospital Blvd.