IRMA DEATH TOLL UP AS FLORIDA SWELTERS
8 nursing-home patients die in South Florida Generator misuse in Polk, Daytona takes 2 more lives Central Florida experiences widespread sewage spills
HOLLYWOOD — Eight patients at a sweltering South Florida nursing home died after Hurricane Irma knocked out the air conditioning, raising fears Wednesday about the safety of the state’s 4 million senior citizens amid power outages that could go on for days.
On Wednesday night, 82 residents were evacuated from an assisted-living facility near Apopka, the Orange County Fire Department confirmed. Sixty-six patients at the Brookdale Wekiwa Springs were evacuated and 16 others left by their own means, spokeswoman Kat Kennedy said.
Authorities also were headed to Green Tree Assisted Living Facility north of Orlando to relocate 37 residents.
The horrifying news out of South Florida came as flooding from the Santa Fe River threatened to shut down Interstate 75 and as more details emerged about the destruction in the Florida Keys.
The Florida Highway Patrol reported that U.S. highways 41 and 27 just north of Gainesville were already closed because of flood waters from the river. It predicted that I-75, a key route for evacuees trying to return home, could be next to shut down as the river rose more than 15 feet.
In Hollywood, Police Chief Tom Sanchez said investigators think the deaths at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills were heat-related. He said 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 nursing home said in a statement that the hurricane had knocked out a transformer that powered the AC.
Sanchez said 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 air-conditioned 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.”
Late Wednesday, state regulators took emergency action to block admissions to the Broward County nursing home where the residents died.
A moratorium on admissions was issued by the state Agency for Health Care Administration. Also, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., called on the federal Department of Health and Human Services to get involved in investigating the deaths.
The deaths came as people trying to put their lives back together in hurricanestricken 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.
At least six people died of apparent carbon-monoxide poisoning from generators in Florida. A Tampa man died after the chain saw he was using to remove trees kicked back and cut his carotid artery.
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, many on stretchers or in wheelchairs. Patients were treated for dehydration, breathing difficulties and other heat-related ills, authorities said.
Nursing homes in Florida are required by state and federal law to file an emergency plan that includes evacuation plans for residents. Any plan submitted by the Hollywood center was not immediately available.
The facility's administrator, Jorge Caballo, said in a statement that it was “cooperating fully with relevant authorities to investigate the circumstances that led to this unfortunate and tragic outcome.”
Through a representative, Carballo told the Sun Sentinel newspaper that the home has a back-up generator but that it does not power the air conditioning.
The nursing home was bought at a bankruptcy auction two years ago after its previous owner went to prison for Medicare fraud, according to news reports at the time of the sale.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which regulates nursing homes, gives the Hollywood center a below-average rating, two stars on its five-star scale. But the most recent state inspection reports showed no deficiencies in the area of emergency plans.
Florida, long one of America's top retirement destinations, has the highest proportion of people 65 and older of any state — 1 in 5 of its 20 million residents. As of 2016, Florida had about 680 nursing homes.
As of Tuesday, the number of people without electricity in the steamy late-summer heat had dropped to 6.8 million — about a third of Florida's population. Utility officials warned it could take 10 days or more for power to be fully restored. The number of people remaining in shelters fell to under 13,000.
In the battered Florida Keys, meanwhile, county officials pushed back against a preliminary estimate from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that 25 percent of all homes in the Keys were destroyed and nearly all the rest were heavily damaged.
“Things look real damaged from the air, but when you clear the trees and all the debris, it's not much damage to the houses,” said Monroe County Commissioner Heather Carruthers.
The Keys felt Irma's full fury when the hurricane roared in on Sunday with 130 mph winds. But the extent of the damage has been an unanswered question for days because some places have been unreachable.
In Marathon Key, a Publix grocery store opened under police guard on Tuesday, but residents could buy only 20 items each, and no cigarettes or alcohol allowed.
She said she had yet to see any state or federal agencies or utility companies working on the ground yet. Her home had no electricity or running water, apart from a trickle of cold water that was good enough for a shower.
President Donald Trump plans to visit Naples, today.