COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS' NEW CRISIS: THE NEED FOR BACKUP POWER

The 2017 Tubbs Fire, which killed 22 people and destroyed 5,600 buildings, was already a stressful time at Alliance Medical Center's clinic here, as workers who picked grapes in the nearby vineyards streamed into the nonprofit community health center with burns, symptoms of smoke inhalation, and other crises.

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Then, the power went out.

Work at the center, about 70 miles north of San Francisco ground to a halt. Staff couldn't access electronic health records or fill prescriptions. The refrigerators used to store medications stopped working, destroying $30,000 worth of vaccines.

"We'd be fine if we never had to live through that again, but the reality is we will," said Alliance CEO Sue Labbe. "But we'll be prepared now."

In May, the clinic - which serves 13,000 patients per year, mostly underinsured and uninsured essential workers who labor in the wine country's fields, hotels and restaurants - turned on a new rooftop solar and battery storage system. Dozens of solar panels, sprawled across the south-and west-facing sections of the clinic's green roof, generate enough power for the center's clinical areas, the server room that supports the electronic records, and the refrigerators that preserve crucial medications. Batteries stacked in metal closets in the building's back parking lot can keep things running for up to 15 hours after the sun goes down.

The humanitarian aid organization Direct Relief paid for the $500,000 system as part of its Power for Health initiative. The six-year-old program was created to help community health centers, serving the country's most vulnerable patients, confront more frequent power outages from extreme weather and fickle grid systems.

"We assume there will be power, but that presumption is no longer as valid as it was a few years ago," said Direct Relief President and CEO Thomas Tighe. "Places that are at a high risk of outages and where there is a high dependency on these health facilities should be prepared."