By Robert Tomlinson
News Director
THREE RIVERS — Even though she wasn’t at Three Rivers Health, Maria Behr recalls quite a lot about March 6, 2026.
The president of Beacon Health’s Three Rivers hospital was away on vacation – her last day of vacation, in fact – when the EF-2 tornado rolled that fateful Friday afternoon into Three Rivers. She said she received a text message that afternoon about there being a tornado warning, and immediately called two of her vice presidents, Hope Bailey in nursing, and Lee Hershberger in operations.
“I said, ‘Is everything okay?’ And they assured me that patients had already been moved to safe spots, because we have a protocol that we follow when there is a tornado warning,” Behr said. “Probably ten minutes after that, then I got a call from Lee Hershberger saying, ‘Things are really bad. We have broken glass in the lobby, one of our emergency department’s sliding doors has been completely blown in, but nobody is hurt and everyone is safe.’”
Behr came back the next day and saw the extent of the damage done to the hospital’s campus. Most of the worst damage was in a row right next to each other, that being the wound clinic, the Schimnoski building next door to the hospital, and the former ProMed building on the corner of U.S. 131 and Broadway Street. However, in total, all nine of the buildings on campus sustained some damage, with the main hospital continuing to maintain full operations.
Nearly four months after the tornado, however, Three Rivers Health is continuing to make progress in recovering. Two of the buildings outside the main hospital that sustained damage are now back in operation at their original locations as of June 16: the Three Rivers Health Surgical Services at 715 S. Health Pkwy. and Three Rivers Health Orthopedics at 1021 Hill St.
Behr said those buildings weren’t able to re-open without the help of the staff of the hospital, some of which had to move offices while the buildings were being re-done. And, in some cases, the buildings getting the repairs needed have made them “better than before.”
“A lot of them have new flooring because as we had windows that had shattered glass, things had to be replaced because they were damaged,” Behr said. “In some cases, there was new paint, new drywall, so I think it just gives a lot of our clinics just a fresher look.”
To get to the point they are now, the hospital had to play a bit of a game of musical chairs. Behr said staff took the day the Monday after the storm to come up with a plan on where services that had been in damaged buildings needed to go to be able to still see patients.
“Just because a tornado happens doesn’t mean that the people in the community don’t continue to need care,” Behr said. “We had to start thinking creatively and think about where can we put our providers so that they can continue to take care of patients.”
What happened was that some surgical services and wound care were brought into the hospital, with surgical services using a couple of rooms in the acute care unit and the wound care providers taking refuge in a couple provided rooms. OB-GYN services were them brought into where the administrative offices had been, moving administration to construction trailers in the back of the hospital.
“At the end of the day, it’s more important for our patients to have a place to be seen and for our providers to have a place where they can see patients, and especially for OB-GYNs, so that it’s close to the hospital, close proximity, and when they need to come and deliver a baby, they’re right here,” Behr said.
The biggest challenges of the whole process, Behr said, was the actual relocation, having to move equipment and resources into unfamiliar spaces to those departments, but as for the hospital there was still cleanup to do. With that, Behr thanked the community for helping them out in that aspect of the recovery.
“We have such a wonderful community around us. Immediately after the storm, we had people asking what they could help with, and so we had volunteers coming in and offering help,” Behr said.
She noted the work of Samaritan’s Purse and Gideon Rescue that especially helped the hospital, and the work of local residents who brought in food for the hospital staff.
“It’s just so heartwarming. I live in the community and have been here for three and a half years. It’s heartwarming and in some ways not surprising because we have such a wonderful community, and that’s what this community is about, helping your neighbor, helping other people,” Behr said. “I think it was very, very heartwarming to all of us to see that type of outpouring of help.”
There is still plenty of work to do to bring the buildings back up to shape, and Behr said the process could take a long time. One of the biggest question marks right now is the status of the ProMed building, which took the heaviest damage and is still questionable if it’ll even open back up. Currently, the providers operating out of there are operating out of Portage.
“We are still working with the insurance companies to figure out what the next steps are,” Behr said. “That’s still a question that needs to be answered, and we have a team of facilities folks that are still working through that process to determine that. So, it’s still kind of up in the air right now.”
However, in the short term, Behr said many clinics that didn’t sustain major damage are “coming along.” She expects the Center for Family Medicine to re-open back in its original location in the next few weeks, and they are currently renovating a vacant clinic building to move the former ProMed providers into by the end of August.
As for the hospital itself, there is still a few areas that are still in the process of getting fixed. Behr said she expects the glass in the front of the hospital will get replaced in the next month, and the sliding doors only recently got fixed.
Once things are completely done, Behr said she hopes to have an open house to let local residents see the improvements made after the tornado.
Overall, Behr said her team has been “incredibly resilient” through the entire situation of recovery, a testament to their love of taking care of people in the community.
“Obviously, it was hard in the early days, and some of the challenges for our physicians and associates is working outside of their normal element,” Behr said. “I think one of the things that I continue to see in the associates that work for Three Rivers Health is resiliency, patience, adaptability. You know, we genuinely care about this community. We want to take care of the community and continue to do so. And so, to be a little bit inconvenienced with some of these things, I think we understand why we’re here and we wanted to continue to do the work that we do.”
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@wilcoxnewspapers.com.
