An orange alert was called at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center yesterday after a power outage produced an unexpected steam shortage at two hospitals.
Both the Vanderbilt University Hospital and the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital experienced steam shortages that lasted from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. The shortage caused the postponement of a small number of elective surgeries and was not a result of any redundancies built into either of the hospital's electrical systems.

As a result of the steam shortage, none of the Medical Center Buildings had heat or domestic hot water.

While some of the elective surgeries had to be postponed until the next day, a small number were delayed until later that day.

"The surgeries were looked at on a case-by-case basis ... when the steam went out we had no ability to sterilize additional instruments," said Assistant Director of Med Center News and Public Affairs Jerry Jones.

The Vanderbilt Medical Center had experienced a similar steam outage roughly a month ago, when a Nashville pipeline was disrupted.