The long Road Back: A reporter's notebook

Our time so far on St. Thomas has been spent at the Schneider Regional Medical Center. That's where the 602nd Area Support Medical Company set up its headquarters and where Video Journalist Richard Adkins and I set up our workspace and living quarters. We got a tour of our home away from home Friday. What we saw, a West Wing in shambles, made me realize, this is a hospital that needs healing.

Like so much of this Island, the place where I grew up, the hospital took Hurricane Irma's strongest blow, and it's still standing. Like so much of the Island, the building is bruised and battered, but it's still standing. Beyond the Walls of this broken building are the reason this Hospital's resilience is not bowing like a window being hit by Hurricane force winds. It's the people of this hospital, the employees coming to work everyday, still providing care in the scarcest of circumstances.

As I walked down one of the hallways Friday, I heard an employee joyfully singing a contemporary Christian song, "We're going up to the High Places." The long road back to recovery will no doubt take a while. This Island community, this hospital, the people will be doing it with a song in their heart.