While Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the dangers of failing to evacuate hospitals from the path of a storm, Hurricane Gustav demonstrated that moving thousands of sick people has its own risks. Gustav also highlighted a critical vulnerability of American hospitals - an inability to withstand prolonged blackouts.

Having worked in disasters, I have seen that, in those critical first few hours, those first few days - so much ends up riding on you and your neighbor and whoever is around. The official response always comes later, and it always feels like it comes too slow.

Before journalism, I had worked doing medical aid work in conflict zones. Then, as a journalist, I had written about hospitals in war zones.

There are places in the world that the power goes out in hospitals, and there isn't clean water, and it's horrific.