SAN JOSE – A malfunctioning fuel pump triggered the failure of backup generators on Tuesday night at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, sending healthcare workers scrambling in the dark amid a scorching heat wave.
Portions of the county-run hospital went entirely without power for a total of four hours, according to hospital officials. While the exact number of generators that failed remained unclear Thursday afternoon, officials maintained that no patients were put in life threatening situations.
That night, seven patients were transferred to other hospitals, while nine were relocated within the facility to areas with working power. Some elective procedures were canceled on Wednesday due to uncertainty surrounding the power grid’s capabilities.
On Thursday, the effects of the heat wave still lingered as the hospital’s emergency room was still not accepting new patients.
“The County takes patient care and access issues extremely seriously,” county spokesperson Leticia Maria Gomez wrote in a statement on Thursday. “The power outage situation has been challenging and is unacceptable.”
Gomez said that one hospital wing which cares for surgical patients was still facing intermittent power issues and that the situation was being monitored.
The county will be conducting a “full examination” of the incident after it is resolved, she said.
In addition to VMC’s power loss, both the county’s O’Connor Hospital and the privately run Regional Medical Center were affected by the blackouts, though their generators did not malfunction. About 30,000 households also lost power in the area, according to Mayor Sam Liccardo’s office.
Liccardo blamed Pacific Gas & Electric for the power outages across the city and threatened legal action against the utility company if they did not quickly present a plan to address the infrastructure issues.
“Lots of cities who face temperatures in the 100s don’t see these kinds of outages,” he said in an interview on Thursday. “Cities see these kinds of outages when the (electrical) distribution is not maintained.”
Liccardo declined to comment on the county’s response, stating that it was too early to tell why their backup generators failed at VMC. The county also called for PG&E to “ensure it can maintain power to critical infrastructure” like hospitals.
In a statement, PG&E said that 70 percent of the households who faced power outages in San Jose had it restored within six hours or less. The company has 500 employees within the county responding to heat-related outages.
“In response to the week-long, unprecedented heat wave, PG&E has taken an all-hands-on-deck approach to keeping the power on for our customers and restoring it safely and as quickly as possible when there is an outage,” the statement read.
Dr. Gregg Adams, a trauma surgeon who has been working with the county for 24 years and was called in on Tuesday night to help during the emergency sit, says he’s “never seen a power failure of this magnitude.”
“It is humbling to realize how dependent you are on physical things like generators and electrical grids,” said Adams. “People’s lives depend on them. And you want to make sure those systems are as fail safe as possible.”
Adams recalled a chaotic scene on Tuesday night, with healthcare workers working against time as they moved patients on machines, like ventilators that last roughly half an hour on backup battery power. All the while, temperatures continued to rise in certain buildings without air conditioning. Tuesday night’s incident highlighted the need for better emergency planning, he said.
“A Thanksgiving turkey’s life is pretty good until the last day,” said Adams. “It’s that black swan event that you need to be prepared for.”
County hospital officials said that both VMC, as well as O’Connor Hospital a mile and a half to the north, lost power at approximately 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, with PG&E notifying them of a substation failure. While backup generators provided power for O’Connor and sections of VMC, an unidentified number failed at VMC between approximately 8:30 p.m. and 12:30 p.m.
PG&E restored power to both buildings at around 1:40 a.m. Wednesday. A spokesperson at the third hospital that lost power, Regional Medical Center in East San Jose, said they were forced to run on backup generators for about two and a half hours on Tuesday evening and operations were not disrupted.
District 4 Supervisor Susan Ellenberg, who represents the area where VMC is located, declined to comment.
The generator failures coincided with one of the most intense heat waves in Northern California history, with San Jose reaching a record 109 degrees. Though rolling blackouts were mostly averted Tuesday night after Californians were able to avoid maxing out the electrical grid, portions of Palo Alto and Alameda had rolling blackouts.
