8 DIE IN IRMA’S SWELTERING WAKE,

HOLLYWOOD, FLA. •Eight patients at a sweltering nursing home died after Hurricane Irma knocked out the air conditioning, raising fears Wednesday about the safety of Florida’s 4 million senior citizens amid power outages that could go on for days.

Hollywood Police Chief Tom Sanchez said investigators believe the deaths at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills were heatrelated, and added: “The building has been sealed off and we are conducting a criminal investigation.”

Gov. Rick Scott called on Florida emergency workers to immediately check on nursing homes to make sure patients are safe, and he vowed to punish anyone found culpable in the deaths.

“This situation is unfathomable,” he said.

The home said in a statement that the hurricane had knocked out a transformer that powered the air conditioning.

Exactly how the deaths happened was under investigation, with Sanchez saying authorities have not ruled anything out, including carbon monoxide poisoning from generators. He also said investigators will look into how many windows were open.

Across the street from the nursing home sat a fully airconditioned hospital, Memorial Regional.

“It’s a sad state of affairs,” the police chief said. “We all have elderly people in facilities, and we all know we depend on those people in those facilities to care for a vulnerable elderly population.”

The deaths came as people trying to put their lives back together in hurricane-stricken Florida and beyond confronted a multitude of new hazards in the storm’s aftermath, including tree-clearing accidents and lethal fumes from generators.

Not counting the nursing home deaths, at least 17 people in Florida have died under Irma-related circumstances, and six more in South Carolina and Georgia, many of them well after the storm had passed. The death toll across the Caribbean stood at 38.

In Hollywood, four patients were found dead at the nursing home early Wednesday after emergency workers received a call about a person with a heart attack, and four more died later, authorities said.

Altogether, more than 100 patients there were found to be suffering in the heat and were evacuated.

The facility’s administrator, Jorge Carballo, said in a statement that it was “cooperating fully with relevant authorities.”

Through a representative, Carballo told the SunSentinel newspaper that the home has a backup generator but that it does not power the air conditioning.