I'm a Louisiana nurse whose hospital was inundated by Hurricane Ida and COVID-19. This is what it was like.

• On the basis of anonymity, Insider spoke with a Louisiana nurse who worked through Hurricane Ida.
• Hospitals often discharge or move patients before a hurricane, but Ida's size and COVID-19 meant they were full when the storm hit.
• Hospital check-ins included storm victims, COVID-19 patients, and people just trying to charge phones - creating even further COVID-19 risk.
• This is the nurse's story, as told to Elle Hardy.

On the condition of anonymity, a Louisiana nurse spoke with Insider about their experiences as Hurricane Ida hit their hospital, which was already overwhelmed by COVID-19. This is their story, as told to Elle Hardy.

Before COVID-19 was an issue, I'd gone through numerous hurricanes as a nurse here in Louisiana.

The usual protocol when we know a storm is coming is that we need to evacuate people. A situation like Hurricane Ida would see the hospital discharge almost everybody, or transfer them to other facilities. Before COVID-19, we would get the census down to a minuscule number. You'd have an empty ER and 90% of employees sitting around waiting for the influx of patients.

However, you can't do that if everyone within a four-hour radius of you is getting damage from the storm too. You also can't transfer people if everyone within a reasonable distance is also full because of COVID-19.

That meant my hospital was at full census before the storm hit. It looked as though the hospital hadn't done anything to prepare, and we were working our butts off.

We were watching the news until the cable went out, which usually means there are probably power outages. We started getting hundreds of calls from emergency services asking if we had beds, and we didn't. Consider that a lot of phone services were cutting out too, and a lot of calls weren't getting through to emergency services.

Then we started seeing patients in the hallway.

The reason people come to hospital in hurricanes is not what you'd think

During a hurricane, you do see some people coming in because they've been hit by falling debris, but my hospital is not the trauma center. Most of what we see after a storm is the side effects of not having infrastructure, such as power or water.

For instance, we had numerous people coming in trying to get dialysis, because you can't do dialysis without clean water and you can't sacrifice what little clean water you have. They might usually go to a neighborhood clinic, but these things are closed.

We also saw a lot of people who use oxygen coming in with shortness of breath, or those with heat-related injuries or exacerbations of chronic illness.

When the power goes out, it's suddenly a big deal that mom can't get out of bed because it's 100 degrees in the house. She's sweating. You're sweating. You can't keep her clean; she's uncomfortable. We saw a lot of admissions because people's caretakers couldn't provide care for them.

People wanting to use the hospital

During Ida, we never lost power or air conditioning. We didn't even have a flicker. But that also meant we had people coming in with bogus complaints because they wanted to sit in the air conditioning and charge their phones.

They were doing it because we have COVID-19 restrictions. If your mom's here, you can't sit in your car running gas, because we don't have much gas in the city. So people will check in and say they have a headache, knowing that we probably won't get to them for 12 to 18 hours. That way they can stay in the waiting room with mom.

I don't blame them for it, but it's a worry. Extra people in the waiting room are creating a breeding ground for COVID-19, as plenty of other people are still coming in sick with that, too.

The Delta outbreak of COVID-19 feels worse

I'm not sure in terms of numbers, but Delta definitely feels worse than the COVID-19 outbreaks last year. I feel like we're seeing more and more people.

Our admission criteria is a bummer sometimes - a person might not meet admission criteria on Tuesday, but they do on Friday. That means people are coming in and coming back a lot, and that's putting a strain on the system.

When you combine two public-health emergencies into one, you're exponentially increasing the risks and the difficulty associated with them.

Needless to say, my hospital is offering a lot of overtime. I don't pick any extra hours up because I'm worn out. There are only so many hours humans can work.