California hospitals try to be earthquake-proof, while Gulf Coast hospitals worry about withstanding hurricanes. They think they've got problems. At Western Galilee Hospital in Israel, about five miles from the Lebanon border, patients are kept safe in a maze of underground bomb shelters set up to be a complete 200-bed hospital. Tunnels are wide enough to ferry patients by ambulance from the helicopter pad outside, and operating rooms sit above the facility in bomb-proof bunkers. Deputy director Moishe Daniel started planning for the underground facility in 1981, after Lebanese bombs hit the hospital. In this Los Angeles Times article, he says he got the idea from an underground hospital in Buffalo, NY, his wife's home town, which used to take care of patients during severe snowstorms.
For more detail on how Galilee Hospital functions:
- take a look at the Los Angeles Times article