SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) -- Friday marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, killing nearly 2,000 people and displacing hundreds of thousands.

The anniversary resonates in San Diego, where Scripps Health sent a roughly 70-member team to Houston to help staff a relief clinic for evacuees, a mission the health system says was the first time a private hospital network was tapped for long-term disaster support.

Chris Van Gorder, Scripps Health’s president and CEO, said the call came quickly after the storm.

“The next morning we got a phone call from a rear admiral with the U.S. Public Health Service asking us to deploy our team to the Gulf,” Van Gorder said.

The group, nurses, physicians and other medical staff, set up inside the George R. Brown Convention Center, whe

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