Natural or man-made disasters and incidents can threaten to overwhelm emergency responders not only from the triage and treatment of those with injuries but also from dealing with the "walking worried" that seek out healthcare facilities for shelter, food and safety.
Such crowds typically form after weather related disasters such as tornadoes, floods hurricanes but can also arrive if there is any type of widespread outage of public utilities such as water or power regardless of the cause since hospitals are required to be self-sustaining for a limited time.
These issues can also occur as a result of public unrest and protest related activities. Such issues can create opportunities for criminal activity at these facilities including physical violence. There is also the potential for terrorist attacks on hospitals as a secondary soft target or for the theft of certain materials during the confusion created by patient surge events.
Methods for mitigating such issues will be discussed as well as how to create security plans for such unexpected incidents.
