VIDEO: Winston Medical Center Rebuild Is 80% Complete

LOUISVILLE, Miss. (WCBI)- The process of rebuilding is just that… a process. Winston County is still recovering from a deadly 2014 tornado. But little by little, storm victims are making great strides.

This April will mark 3 years since Louisville was hit with a deadly EF-4 tornado but today they can say that they’re 80 percent complete with their new hospital.

“We are on schedule. Basically, the terms being used are on time and within budget,” says Administrator Paul Black.

Four words any contractor and administrator love to hear. It’s been a three year process. The new facility will offer much more than the one that was destroyed on April 28, 2014.

Black says the newest addition will be “cottages” built for nursing home patients.

“We’ve hired some people to come in and do some interior decorating for us, trying to set those cottages up to look exactly like a home or as close to a home as we possibly could,” says Black

And everyone at the hospital is excited.

“Oh it’s gonna be fantastic I think, everything is gonna be in one place now, our hospitals, nursing home, rehab center, everything’s gonna be all in one place,” says WMC Accounting Assistant Lori Luke.

“I think everybody is seeing everything actually come together out on the site… we’ve been talking about equipment, we’ve got the employees involved in trying to determine what we’re gonna do and how we’re gonna do it and when you start doing things like that the excitement really builds,” says Black.

He says the community has been nothing but supportive.

“They’re seeing the progress going on with the construction and it’s sort of like, yea, this is really happening,” says Black.

Hospital employees say everything has truly come full circle.

“It’s a special meaning, because seeing our hospital destroyed and gone and then coming back together… so a family, it’s like coming back home, we’re all one big WMC family, just we know everybody, we’re all local and it just feels like coming back and just being together,” says Luke.

“When you start a project like this, you have something in your head that you think, ‘this is what it’s gonna look like and be like’ and I think we’re gonna be real close to that,” says Black.

Black says that even though nothing is set in stone, they hope to hold a grand opening open house where the entire community can come and do a walk through behind the scenes of the hospital and for it to be held on the exact anniversary date of the tornado.

Categories: Local News

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