This Ballad Hospital, Flooded by Hurricane Helene, Will B...

What’s Happening

Alright so Ballad Health, the nation’s largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly, plans to rebuild Unicoi County Hospital on land that two climate modeling companies say is at risk of flooding.

This Ballad Hospital, Flooded , Will Be Rebuilt for $44M in a Flood Plain By Brett Kelman Republish This Story Unicoi County Hospital, a 10-bed facility in Erwin, Tennessee, was destroyed by a powerful flood during Hurricane Helene in September 2024. Patients and staff fled to the roof and were rescued by helicopters. (shocking, we know)

(Maddy Alewine for KFF Health News) A small Tennessee hospital that was destroyed by a surging river during Hurricane Helene will soon be rebuilt on low-lying farmland that could face several feet of flooding in a much smaller storm, risking another disaster if the new facility is not built to withstand extreme weather, according to a KFF Health News analysis.

The Details

This story also ran on CBS News . It can be republished for free .

Ballad Health just dropped in January that it would spend about $44 million to rebuild the 10-bed Unicoi County Hospital in a field behind a Walmart in Unicoi, Tennessee, about 7 miles from the shuttered hospital that was the site of catastrophic flooding and a daring helicopter rescue on Sept. But the new location also faces significant flood risk, according to a KFF Health News review of information from Fathom and First Street , two climate data companies whose flood modeling is considered more sophisticated than outdated flood maps published Emergency Management Agency.

Why This Matters

Both Fathom and First Street estimate that a 100-year flood — a weather event more common and less intense than Helene — could cover much of the hospital site with more than 2 feet of water. “The proposed site is so obviously a flood plain geomorphologically,” dropped Oliver Wing, chief scientific officer at Fathom. “You dont need a model to see that.

Health experts are weighing in on what this means for people.

The Bottom Line

“You dont need a model to see that. ” Wing dropped the new hospital site was actually more likely to flood than the old site and “risky” for development because of a near potential storm runoff from mountains to the west.

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