Metro Atlanta healthcare providers prepare for winter weather

Hospitals and first responders are waiting with cots and emergency supplies in case crisis strikes during tomorrow's winter storm. Atlanta News First, Madeline Montgomery is live tonight at the American Medical Response Garage in DeKalb County. So Madeline, they have spent all week getting ready for this. They've been working hard stocking up. You can see that for their ambulance fleet of 60, they have snow tires for all of their vehicles. And they also have a number of cots for the 160 providers. Imagine trying to get to the hospital in this. The ice, snow and standstill traffic of snow began in 2014 helped American medical response crews know how to get prepared for this week's winter weather. We outfitted our vehicles with snow tires. We also put salt equipped in all of our ambulances, many shovels. Not only do ambulances have to be ready, the paramedics in them have to be able to make it to work. We have cots readily available here. We also have transportation to go pick up our employees and take them back home if they need it. Cots are also being set up at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital for health care providers. We talk about it still to this day of what happened back in Snowmageddon. We've taken a lot of lessons learned from that to make sure that we're prepared, such as this area. Emory University Hospital has a similar plan for staff. We already have made arrangements for staff to stay overnight. We turn ourselves into not only a hospital, but a hotel. A well-stocked hospital slash hotel at that. Fuel for emergency power generators, food, water, medicines, all the things to sustain operations for a period of time if we run out of power. Schedules have also changed for appointments and surgeries tomorrow. We decided to cancel all of our outpatient procedures for tomorrow. We began to call our patients. So we've tried to be proactive in enabling our patients to make a choice that's right for them. Spokespeople for Northside Hospital and Children's Health Care of Atlanta say their hospitals will stay open, but you can call if you're concerned about getting to a surgery or to an appointment to see if it's the right decision for you. Reporting live in DeKalb County, I'm Madeline Montgomery, Atlanta News First.