Five months ago, Dr. Kurt O’Brien’s general surgery practice was working as usual on the fifth floor of Iberia Medical Center’s campus when a tornado warning alert sounded off.

As many do in south Louisiana, O’Brien said he and his staff didn’t think much of the weather alert until one of his secretaries said that she could see weather formation outside.

“We didn’t believe her, but sure enough we looked outside and saw it coming across the cane field right for us,” O’Brien said. “We got in the stairwell when the tornado hit, we could feel the pressure change, ears popping, all that stuff.”

It was a day O’Brien described as “exciting,” but the doctor and his staff were excited for a different reason Monday when they were finally able to relocate back to their office on the fifth floor after working out of temporary offices since the ordeal happened.

“We just got back and we’re very excited,” O’Brien said. “I don’t think we’ve missed hardly any days during this whole thing so that’s good.”

The IMC doctor’s office was one of the worst hit by the Dec. 14 hurricane that dropped down in New Iberia and did significant damage to the Main Campus.

Those driving by Iberia Medical Center in the past four months may not have seen much in the way of progress for the facility’s glass exterior following December’s tornado that ripped through the hospital, but hospital administration said Tuesday that progress was happening quickly and efficiently for the interior of the building.

IMC CEO Dionne Viator said most of the progress made so far for the medical office building was concentrated in the interior largely due to the fact that the hospital’s famous glass windows will have to be completely replaced.

“We’ve done some work to the exterior but a lot of that is in the planning and engineering stages,” Viator said during a walkthrough of the facility Tuesday. “You don’t see a lot of activity outside right now, but we’re actually very busy.”

The IMC Main Campus was one of the primary victims of a tornado that dropped down in New Iberia on Dec. 14, blowing out several of the windows and causing extensive roof damage. Almost miraculously, there were no significant injuries during the incident and the tornado did not touch the hospital side of the facility. As a result, patient care was able to continue without missing a beat while those in the medical office building were able to be safely evacuated.

As far as the overall progress, sealing the roof was one of the most urgent projects needed, which was followed by interior renovations. Viator said some interior has not been completed due to the window work that needs to be completed first.

Viator said every pane of glass will be replaced as a result of the construction work that will be ongoing for the rest of the year. The hospital administration is planning to reopen in sections to the environments of every area of the building.

Vice-President of Operations Jacob Freyou said there were several areas of the curtain wall that were damaged. The curved wall of the medical office building was installed in 1989 or 1990, Freyou said, and the building codes and design structures for similar types of buildings have changed.

Freyou said the hospital reached out to the original architect and original curtain wall designed for the project, and the current plan is to make the new glass exterior even stronger.

“We did a structural glass analysis of the new glass, and it’s about three times stronger than what we had before,” Freyou said. “We want everything better than it was before.”