Blessed Mother statue in Camden braces for Irene

Following Tuesday's earthquake, engineers at Camden's Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital hurried Wednesday to secure the 30-foot Blessed Mother statue - damaged by the quake - in anticipation of the next natural disaster: Hurricane Irene.

The earthquake caused the statue to shift, opening up a crack one to two inches wide in the middle. The 15-ton limestone sculpture has stood atop the hospital for 60 years and is a Camden landmark.

Scaffolding material arrived at the hospital Wednesday afternoon and a crew worked to assemble it through the evening.

"We are committed to securing it this evening," said hospital spokeswoman Carol Lynn Daly. "We expect to have more winds tomorrow, and with the hurricane coming. . . ."

Engineers believe the statue can be fixed, but the method has not yet been determined. Once the scaffolding is in place, further review of the statue will be done, Daly said, adding that engineers hope to fix the sculpture of the Virgin Mary in its place.

"The other option would be to get a crane to bring it down," and repair it at ground-level then put it back up, Daly said.

The hospital's front entrance on Haddon Avenue will remain closed until further notice. Patients and visitors should enter the hospital through the Emergency Room doors.

Irene, which has already touched down in the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, is expected to hit the Philadelphia region Saturday night.

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