14 Hours (2005 film)
14 Hours is a 2005 medical emergency docudrama produced for the TNT Network and starring JoBeth Williams. The film was set in Houston, Texas and filmed in Vancouver, Canada. Based on true-life events surrounding Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, the film was released internationally on DVD by Paramount Pictures.[1] 14 Hours was produced through Cosmic Entertainment, which counts Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn, Oliver Hudson and Kate Hudson as its principals, and sponsored by Johnson & Johnson.[2] The Decades channel aired this movie in March 2017.
| 14 Hours | |
|---|---|
 Promotional movie poster | |
| Written by | Danilo Bach |
| Directed by | Gregg Champion |
| Starring | JoBeth Williams Ricky Schroder Kris Kristofferson |
| Theme music composer | Joseph Conlan |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Frances Croke Page Shanna Nussbaum |
| Cinematography | Gordon Lonsdale |
| Editor(s) | Gib Jaffe |
| Running time | 95 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | TNT Network |
| Original release |
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Plot
14 Hours is based on the harrowing events of June 9, 2001, when Tropical Storm Allison stalled over the Houston metropolitan area, pouring nearly 30 inches of rain on the city within a 14-hour period. The story begins as the storm seems to be moving away from Houston. Jeanette Makins (JoBeth Williams), a nurse at Memorial Hermann Hospital, arrives ready for what she expects to be a normal day. But Tropical Storm Allison's rains return, quickly turning a normal day into a nightmare. As floodwaters inundate the lower levels of the hospital, a brilliant young surgeon, Dr. Foster (Rick Schroder), makes the decision to move the patients to safer ground, including Amelia and Gary, a young couple whose premature baby, Jeremy, is struggling for his life when all the life-support equipment shuts off in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit; also a girl and her mother, severely hurt in a car accident. With the resourceful thinking of Chuck Whortle (Kris Kristofferson), chief of Harris County Emergency Management, the hospital staff and volunteers race against the clock to get all patients to safety. It took 14 hours to safely evacuate 600 patients from the hospital, hence the title of the movie.
Cast
- JoBeth Williams ... Jeanette Makins
- Kris Kristofferson ... Chuck Whortle
- Kirsten Robek ... Nurse Lily
- Kevin McNulty ... Larry Dastych
- Jason Schombing ... Bronson
- Rick Schroder ... Dr. Foster
- Kim Roberts ... Helen
- Karin Konoval ... Dr. Estrada
- Simone Bailly ... Phoebe
- Rick Dobran ... Gary
Backstory
Houston native JoBeth Williams weathered her share of tropical storm and hurricane conditions as a child. Her mother worked as a dietician at Memorial-Herrmann (the Houston-area hospital where 14 Hours is set) for 18 years.[3] The premature baby in the movie is based in Zachary Jackson's struggle to survive not only prematurity but also the loss of power to his life-support equipment when he weighed around 2 lbs (1 kilogram). He is now a healthy teenager in the Houston Metropolitan area, and did a fundraiser to make Relief Boxes full of preemie essentials to victims of Hurricane Harvey and delivered them to Intensive Care Units. The producers were inspired by the Reader's Digest article "BLACKOUT" by Peter Michelmore published in April 2002.