Florida hospitals, health care centers close ahead of Hurricane Milton landfall

(NEW YORK) — Dozens of health care facilities in Florida are suspending services and/or preparing to evacuate as Hurricane Milton approaches.

On Sunday, Pinellas County – located on the west central Florida coast and including Clearwater and St. Petersburg – issued mandatory evacuation orders for long-term care facilities, assisted living facilities and hospitals in three evacuation zones.

The order affects six hospitals, 25 nursing homes and 44 assisted living facilities, totaling about 6,600 patients, according to the order.

“Pinellas County is in the potential path of the storm and could experience life-threatening storm surge, localized flooding and hurricane force winds, [depending] on where the storm makes landfall on Wednesday,” the order read. “Many coastal areas have barely begun to recover from Hurricane Helene.”

Just north of Pinellas County, Morton Plant North Bay Hospital in New Port Richey initiated evacuation procedures Monday morning and is not accepting new patients, according to a statement from BayCare, the hospital’s parent network.

BayCare said that while all of its other hospitals are open as of Monday afternoon, elective procedures for non-urgent procedures have been canceled for Wednesday, Oct. 9, with a decision for procedures on Thursday, Oct. 11, to come shortly.

All BayCare ambulatory surgery centers, imaging centers, laboratories, urgent care facilities and behavioral health outpatient sites will also be closed Wednesday and Thursday, according to the BayCare statement.

Additionally, the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital, located in Tampa and affiliated with the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, announced the hospital and its outpatient clinics would be closed for in-person appointments and elective surgeries from Tuesday, Oct. 9, to Thursday, Oct. 11, due to “predicted impacts from Hurricane Milton.”

University of Florida Health (UF Health) issued a tropical weather alert Monday afternoon, announcing that most UF Health hospitals, outpatient clinical facilities and physician practices remain open, with some exceptions. Facilities in Archer, Gainesville, Jacksonville, Leesburg, Naples, St. Augustine, St. Petersburg, and The Villages announced closures or modified hours ahead of Milton’s landfall.

HCA Florida Healthcare told ABC News on Monday it was working to transfer patients from hospitals most directly in the Milton’s expected path to sister facilities throughout the state. Hospitals that are transferring patients include HCA Florida Englewood Hospital in Englewood, HCA Florida Fawcett Hospital in Port Charlotte, HCA Florida Largo West Hospital in Largo, HCA Florida Pasadena Hospital in St. Petersburg, and HCA Florida West Tampa Hospital in Tampa.

However, not all health care facilities currently have plans to suspend service. A spokesperson for Tampa General Health (TGH) said no closures have been announced yet and directed ABC News to an update on the hospital’s website, which as of Monday afternoon stated that all of TGH’s “hospitals, medical offices and other facilities are continuing normal operations.”

TGH also said it activated its emergency response plan “and opened its incident command center to enable and support continued operations.”

Another network, Florida AdventHealth, issued a notice that its hospitals and emergency rooms remain open but warned that some of its operations may change “for the safety of our patients, their loved ones and our team members.”

The National Hurricane Center announced Monday that Milton had intensified to a Category 5 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 175 mph, and with flooding and storm surges posing a major risk for many communities on Florida’s west central coast.