Hospital Progress One Year After April 2024 Tornado
Posted on Friday, April 25th, 2025
Many Buildings Repaired; 24-hour Care on the
Cusp of Resuming at Tornado-Wracked Hospital
Temporary Emergency Room Links Up to Clinic: A covered walkway connects the clinic parking lot with a newly-constructed emergency room, which opens soon at Mercy Health Love County. Medical care will be available for walk-in patients and ambulance patients 24 hours a day.
Inside the Temporary ER: Construction workers on April 24, 2025, put together three
treatment bays and a trauma room in a temporary emergency room on the hospital’s
east side. A brand new laboratory inside also will begin serving patients and the public.
Like a patient in long-term care, key buildings on the Mercy Health Love County Hospital campus have undergone rehabilitation since being struck by a powerful F4 tornado on April 27, 2024.
Tornado damage and water damage have been remedied at the Clinic Building, the Therapy Building (now the home of physical and speech therapy and radiology services), the former Growers Market (now the home of EMS Station 1), the former Adult Day Center (now the hospital business office), and the Maintenance Building. Remediation continues at the Social Services Building.
The heavily-damaged hospital building itself, at 300 Wanda Street, sits vacant and unusable. But plans continue being developed for a restored or new hospital on the same site.
The big news is that the return of 24-hour medical care is right around the corner. A temporary emergency room has gone up and the announcement of opening day is expected soon.
Hospital officials Scott Callender, Administrator and CEO; Jessica Crosthwait, Executive Assistant to the Administrator, and Carla Bolton, Business Office Manager, provided further details in a recent meeting.
Assembly of the 2,500 square foot ER is complete. Work is going on inside, to include a waiting room, three emergency rooms, one trauma room, and a complete laboratory.
The new laboratory represents the resumption of a sorely-missed service. Technologists will once again provide lab work for the ER and the clinic, and for visiting patients and businesses of the area.
The emergency room will be open 24 hours a day with medical care by mid-level providers under supervision by Mercy Health Love County physicians.
The ER is east of the clinic parking lot. The walk-in entrance is at the north end. A covered walkway connects the ER with the clinic sidewalk.
The ambulance entrance to the ER will be on the south. The emergency vehicles will enter from Legacy Park Lane via a new driveway that runs behind the ER and connects with the clinic parking lot.
Also on the south, a slab has been poured to install a semi-trailer to house the hospital’s CT scanner.
A new home for the destroyed radiology wing of the hospital has been found in the remodeled conference room of the Therapy Building. X-ray and other tests are expected to resume when the temporary emergency room opens.
The tornado also destroyed EMS Station 1, which is establishing new quarters in the former Growers Market. Renovation is expected to be complete prior to the emergency room opening.
The hospital’s food pantry was destroyed by the tornado. That service continued with minimal interruption at temporary sites, most recently at the former Greenville School.
A new site on hospital grounds is bringing the food pantry back to Marietta. It is inside the former Ford Building at the corner of Memorial Drive and Wanda Drive. The ambulance service will be vacating that building soon and some remodeling will take place before the food pantry moves in.
In the past year, the clinic’s six providers and related staff never missed a day serving patients face to face or by telephone or remote visit. Ambulance runs and the business services of the hospital also have carried on without interruption, though in makeshift locations.
The resumption of inpatient hospital stays is two years away, at best, the hospital administrators said. They spoke favorably of their relationship with insurers, as well as state and federal agencies, to expedite restoration. FEMA is expected to provide 75% of construction costs, after insurance, for a rebuilt or new hospital. The agency also assists financially with debris cleanup and the restoration of the other hospital buildings.