Cops: Elder home was sweltering after Irma
But West Palm facility’s boss refused city generators for ‘whiny crybabies.’
WEST PALM BEACH — Elder residents of a West Palm Beach assisted-living facility were left sweltering following Hurricane Irma after the facility lost power and for a day its director refused a city offer of generators to power the air conditioning, according to just-released police reports.
Residents of Savannah Court were found sweating on the home’s steamy second floor Sept. 12 when fire-rescue personnel responded to an anonymous tip of unbearable conditions at the home, at 2090 N. Congress Ave., according to reports filed by Detective Andrea Izzo-Higgins and Sgt. Lori Colombino.
When police came back the next morning and asked why the residents hadn’t been taken to the cooler first floor, Executive Director Michael DeSalvo said they couldn’t be moved because they were in wheelchairs and the elevator wasn’t working.
“You don’t know these people,” he told the officers. “They are all a bunch of whiny crybabies and
have been before the storm.”
De Salvo could not be reached for comment.
Following the deaths of 14 Hollywood nursing-home patients after Hurricane Irma, Gov. Rick Scott this past month announced rules requiring nursing homes and assisted-living facilities in the state to have generators to “maintain comfortable temperatures for at least 96 hours following a power outage.” A bill fifiled this month in Tallahassee would require that power companies respond fifirst to critical facilities including hospitals and nursing homes.
According to the West Palm Beach police report, fire-rescue personnel had of ff ff ff ff ff fe red De Salvo additional generatorsto power air conditioners for the Savannah Court’s 114 residents. He accepted their offer of ice and water, which City Commissioner Keith James dropped off, but DeSalvo refused the generators.
James told The Palm Beach Post he was appall ed by the conditions at Savannah Court, scolded the executive director and reported back to city offifficials in West Palm’s Emergency Operations Center.
Concerned that residents would be overcome with heat and dehydrate, Colombino contacted Izzo, who is assigned to the count y State Attorney’s Offiffice’s Elder Crime Task Force, to meet her at the home at 9 a.m. Sept. 13. Emergency Operations Director Brent Bloomfifield joined them.
“Upon entering the front door, we were overcome with a stench of mildew,” Colombino wrote in her report. There was electricity running through wires to lights and fans in the lobby, but still no air conditioning, she wrote.
“We observed wet carpet in rooms — some covered by thick plastic sheets. As we walked from the north to the south unit, we were struck with a considerably higher temperature. Residents appeared to be extremely uncomfortable and several residents asked for our assistance with cooling the facility,” she wrote. “Residents were observed in paper clothing attempting to cool offffffffffff, observed fanning themselves with handmade fans and/or other objects,” she said.
When DeSalvo arrived to meet the cit y officials, he was “immediately confrontational and demanded we tell Commissioner Keith James that he needs to learn how to talk to people,” she wrote.
DeSalvo demanded the offifficials contact FPL and get the power restored.
Asked to confirm he’d arranged to get additional generators, he replied that he had done everything he was required to do as mandated by the state to keep the facility operable, she wrote.
When asked why he refused the offer of generators the previous evening, “Michael was unable to provide an explanation,” she wrote. “Michael did not appear to be in the least bit interested with our concerns for the elderly residents.”
At 10:15 a.m., West Palm Beach Mayor Jeri Muoio arrived with Police Chief Sarah Mooney, James and city staff ff ff ff ff ff ers,wi th aTV crew in tow.
DeSalvo slapped the camera from the cameraman’s face, then, “swiftly walked toward Mayor Muoio, who was standing on the sidewalk speaking on her cell- phone,” Colombino wrote. “Michael grabbed the photo identifification card hanging from the mayor’s neck and turned it around. The mayor ended her phone call and brieflflflfly spoke with Michael,” Colombino wrote.
“I thought the police were going to jump him or something. He was a little assertive,” Muoio said Monday.
“Basically, I said to him the treatment of the people there was unacceptable, that they need to be in an air-conditioned place,” she recalled. “He’d turned down our offffffffffffer of generators. I said, ‘You have to fifix this. We’re coming back by 3 and it has to be fifixed by then. He was like, ‘No, everything’s fifine,’ and when we went out to check on it everything wasn’t fifine and he needed to take action.”
By the end of the offifficials’ visit, DeSalvo accepted the offer of generators. Later that day, the air was back on.
Meanwhile, Izzo-Higgins contacted a handful of state agencies to inspect Savannah Court, including the Agency for Health Care Administration, Department of Children and Families and the Department of Health. The agencies “did not fifind immediate concerns to shut down the facility or remove residents,” she wrote.
“At the conclusion of our visit, Michael apologized for his actions earlier in the day,” she wrote.