NEW BRUNSWICK – New Orleans had been battered by the 127-mph winds and soaking rains of Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall as a Category 3 storm in the early morning hours of Aug. 29, 2005.

Even more catastrophic news came the next day, when officials realized the levees built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were starting to fail and that tens of billions of gallons of water from Lake Pontchartrain would soon flood almost every corner of the city.

Fear was spreading, generator power was failing, communication infrastructure had crumbled and the lives of 240 patients rested in the hands of Les Hirsch, who had been on the job as the president and CEO of Touro Infirmary in New Orleans for exactly one week.

Hirsch took a deep breath, conferred with administrators and decided an evac

See Full Page