NORFOLK, NE -
Tornadoes, intense rain and hail, from Sioux City to Kansas City, we saw it all this weekend.
Saturday's storm didn't just damage homes up and down the Midwest, parts of Norfolk, Nebraska's hospital had to be evacuated.
Saturday's storm flooded the emergency department at the Faith Regional Health Services hospital in Norfolk, and even though cleanup's moving along quickly right now, it'll definitely be a storm no one at that hospital will ever forget.
In the emergency department at the Faith Regional Health Services Hospital in Norfolk, you'll hear dozens of fans.
In fact, on Monday it was hard to hear anything else, as those fans dried the floors and walls and crews cleaned up after Saturday's storm.
"It really got dark fast and when it started coming down the rain was just incredible, and then I've never seen hail float, like little icebergs," said Tim Auwarter, Vice President of Support and Ancillary Services for the hospital, speaking of Saturday's storm.
With nickel sized hail three inches deep and more than three inches of rain, it's no wonder the hospital's emergency department flooded.
A door in the hallway of the department was ground zero.
Employees noticed water was seeping in from underneath the door, and from above it.
Pretty soon the pressure was just too much and the door was blown off its hinges about 10 to 20 feet down a hallway.
"That left about four or five feet of water and a tsunami like effect, a mudslide it all came into our emergency department and flooded the entire department," said Auwarter.
The emergency wing looked more like a frozen ocean than anything else, but the main concern: moving the patients.
"We had some logistics with the flood coming in and ice coming in, our primary responsibility was patient safety," said Kelly Driscoll, Vice President of Patient Services for the hospital.
That move was finished within minutes.
Crews turned parts of the hospital's intensive care unit and a waiting room into a temporary emergency room.
The good news is cleanup shouldn't last very long.
The emergency department should be back up and running in the next two to three days.
The bad news: there's no word yet on how much the damage and that clean up will cost.
