Healthcare Project Descriptions
Florida Hurricane Recovery
During cleanup and recovery efforts associated with four hurricanes that hit Florida during 2004, LVI rapidly mobilized a workforce that ultimately exceeded 1,200 trained laborers.
Clients included West Florida Hospital and Martin, Escambia, Charlotte and St. Lucie counties.
LVI moved aggressively to redeploy a trained workforce, equipment, building materials, administrative staff and health and safety resources to the area.
Employees from its Tampa office, as well as offices in Colorado, Maryland, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas, were dispatched and the teams and worked out of LVI’s newly established command centers located near Fort Myers, Stuart and Pensacola.
The ability to bring all of these resources together was a result of LVI’s unique operating model and experience in responding to Tropical Storm Allison in Houston in 2001 and Supertyphoon Pongsona on Guam in 2002.
Cedars Sinai Medical Center – North Care Tower,
Beverly Hills, California
For one of the leading hospitals in the United States, LVI applied fireproofing to new steel columns, beams and load-bearing diagonal braces framing a new, eight-story patient care tower. Teams also applied fireproofing to the outward sloping decorative lobbies, requiring cantilevered scaffold access and high-density fireproofing application to the street-level ambulance entrance.
Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Under contract to U.S. General Services Administration, LVI applied fireproofing to the existing ground floor framing of the 180,000-square-foot medical facility and reapplied fireproofing in multiple areas of steel framing after asbestos had been removed during an earlier phase of the project. A two-part rust inhibiting primer was applied to all beams and decking prior to fireproofing application.
Hurricane Katrina Cleanup
Gulf Coast region (New Orleans, LA; Gulfport, MS)
During the initial cleanup along the Gulf Coast after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, LVI had approximately 2,150 workers on the ground in the Gulf Coast region working on cleanup and restoration projects.
LVI’s work included large-scale cleanup projects at hospitals, hotels, resorts, retail outlets, municipal buildings and businesses in Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and Texas. Projects were coordinated out of the company’s Houston regional office, and from office and warehouse facilities and mobile Emergency Command Centers located throughout the affected areas, including a new 27,000-square-foot office and warehouse facility in Saint Rose, La., in support of the activities in New Orleans, and Gulfport and Biloxi, Miss. An 8,000-square-foot office/warehouse facility in Port Arthur, Texas, supported the company’s response efforts in Port Arthur and Beaumont, Texas, and Lake Charles, La., as well as surrounding areas.
The mobile centers in the field featured computers, satellite phone uplinks, bathroom facilities and biometric time keeping systems, which helped facilitate the personnel and payroll requirements of a mobile work force. The company also deployed its own diesel fuel tanker truck to keep its equipment operating. To accommodate its work force, the company used 20 mobile sleepers, located just outside New Orleans, to house 840 workers. The sleepers are equipped with their own power sources, air conditioning and heating.
Aside from the incredible amount of structural damage the areas sustained, of paramount concern to LVI was mold growth due to moisture from the rain, flooding and storm surge, a humid climate, and lack of air conditioning. LVI worked with its clients to assess the damage to their properties and devise action plans to address the problems in the order that made the most sense to prevent further property damage.
Among the projects that LVI was involved with in New Orleans was demolition and cleanup at the Superdome, including air scrubbing and restoring indoor air quality to acceptable levels. Interior demolition, cleanup and mold remediation was completed for Orleans Parish Independent School District. The company also completed demolition and removal of asbestos-containing materials from properties in St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes for the Erath Housing Authority. Mold remediation work was completed at Harrah’s Grand Casino’s Gulf Breeze Tower in Gulfport, Mississippi.
University of Oklahoma Medical Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
LVI was retained to conduct major interior demolition and ongoing infection control projects for this large hospital in Oklahoma City. Various parts of the hospital have been under construction and renovation for several years. LVI has designed and installed a number of controls and physical barriers to prevent contaminants from escaping the construction areas. These controls include placement of air filtration equipment and negative pressurization zones.
In addition to the infection control procedures, LVI has also provided asbestos abatement and minor exterior demolition that included removal of windows and brick façades to allow for new openings to be created and windows replaced in exterior walls.
E.K. Long Hospital, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
When the Earl K. Long Hospital was being renovated, it was key that work be completed in small phases, as the hospital is almost always at or near capacity. LVI was contracted to remove structural fireproofing from the beams, deck and columns of the basement (crawl spaces) through the fifth floor, as well as asbestos-containing thermal pipe insulation throughout the hospital.
Containing contaminants was key, because most rooms surrounding the construction areas were occupied by patients during all phases of construction. LVI again constructed ante-rooms and implemented controls such as negative pressurization to contain contaminants and prevent them from infiltrating patient areas. LVI worked with hospital officials and all contractors involved in the work to ensure patient safety and minimal disruption during construction and abatement projects.
Medical Center, Greater Boston Area
LVI worked with a major medical center in the greater Boston area on a mold remediation project after a sprinkler line in the facility broke and water migrated throughout the facility creating immediate mold growth. The broken pipe occurred on the fifth floor of the hospital, and all the floors including the fifth and lower were affected in some capacity, including patient areas, staff areas, common areas and seven functional operating rooms.
LVI worked to remediate and decontaminate all of the affected areas, and provided drying services and duct cleaning. The biggest challenge came with I placing infection controls, including construction of containment facilities, to prevent contamination of patient areas during the microbial remediation and clean up, while maintaining the temperature, humidity and functionality of the operating rooms during the project.
University of California San Diego Medical Center, San Diego, CA
When the UCSD Medical Center underwent fire sprinkler retrofits over a 24-month period, LVI was called upon to install infection control containments throughout the center.
After constructing containments, LVI provided ongoing maintenance of the containments throughout the construction period to ensure that all contractors involved in the project were also utilizing clean work practices to protect the rest of the hospital and its patients from contamination.