Four area hospitals, including Grady Memorial Hospital and Atlanta Medical Center, reported taking in 16 patients from Friday's storm -- most with minor injuries, though one reportedly in critical condition.

The same strong winds that sent patients to Grady also damaged buildings and ambulances there.

Three ambulances -- including Grady's only operating neonatal transport unit -- were out of commission Saturday because of storm damage.

Children's Healthcare of Atlanta was picking up calls for Angel, the specialized unit that brings premature and at-risk newborns from North Georgia to Grady. Despite losing the use of two other ambulances, Grady had 25 vehicles on the streets on Saturday.

At Hughes Spalding pediatric hospital, owned by Grady and operated by Children's Healthcare, staff members moved all 13 patients in residence to the basement for the duration of the storm, said Kevin McClelland, spokesman for Children's Healthcare.

Hughes Spalding, which is across the street from Grady's main building, lost a few windows, McClelland said, "but within an hour, we were accepting patients again."

At least two historic buildings in the Grady complex suffered moderate damage and 17 of 18 buildings lost power, Grady officials said Saturday.

A few windows were blown out of the cafeteria in the main hospital where inpatients are treated, but the building retained power. As a precaution, nurses plugged all vital equipment, including ventilators, into special red outlets that are fed by a generator.

Nurses also moved patients, including newborns, away from windows and lowered blinds to catch any blowing glass.

Georgia Hall, the original home of the 115-year-old hospital, lost windows and a chimney, said Craig Tindall, Grady's interim chief operating officer, and there was some water damage inside. Georgia Hall, now the health system's human resources headquarters, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

So is the Steiner Ward, designed by renowned architect Neel Reid, which lost part of its roof. Steiner, now occupied by Emory University, was the country's first cancer hospital.

The Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority had met in Steiner earlier Friday to name the board of a new private nonprofit corporation to take over management of the hospital.

Neonatalogist Dr. William Sexson was about to leave Grady when the storm hit.

"I was getting ready to walk out the door and the door started rattling very hard," he said. "There were tree limbs and glass blowing horizonally down the street."

Sexson, a mountain climber, said the winds were "much more daunting" than any he had experienced atop a peak.

But the doctors and nurses in Grady's emergency room never missed a beat, said Katherine Heilpern, chief of the department of emergency medicine at Emory University School of Medicine, which, along with Morehouse School of Medicine furnishes Grady's physicians.

"As it turns out, the emergency room was prepared," she said. "That's what we do."

Between 9 p.m. Friday and 8 a.m. Saturday, Grady's ambulance service answered a total of 158 calls and transported 82 patients to local hospitals, a higher volume than usual.

Many patients who suffered minor injuries from debris also walked into Grady's emergency room.