How one Buffalo hospital is surviving the blizzard

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Keri Zindle slept as best she could by her desk and got coffee at the Tim Hortons cafe in the lobby.

So went life for the last couple of days for the staff stuck at Mercy Hospital. Located in South Buffalo, the Catholic Health System facility was buried in one of the area’s hardest-hit by the historic snowstorm.

“The people here are doing what they can. They are making the best of it,” said Zindle, an emergency room coder and analyst who has been at the hospital since 11:30 a.m. Tuesday after a harrowing trip to work that forced her to abandon her four-wheel-drive Jeep.

“We’re starting to see a few new people coming in, but I’ll probably be here until Friday,” she said Wednesday by phone.

Accreditation at hospitals requires them to determine in advance whether they are capable of standing alone for at least 96 hours in an emergency. That means every key aspect of operations, from supplies and utilities to security and staffing.

The storm put Mercy to the test, and it appears to have passed.

“We have prepared and trained for this. There is enough food, medications and oxygen. The staff has been incredible. Everyone is hanging in there,” said C.J. Urlaub, the hospital’s president and CEO.

“If there is one message I’d like to get out, it’s that we’re taking care of patients,” he said.

The hospital at 565 Abbott Road near Cazenovia Park held 308 inpatients when the snow began and is caring for about 330, including those in the emergency room, with a staff consisting mainly of the on-call doctors and employees from Monday and Tuesday. Some people have been there since their 7 a.m.-to-7 p.m. Monday shift.

That has kept everyone very busy.

Doctors performed one emergency operation, and a handful of