Swamped seniors are safe
Twitter users expressed shock at photo of people caught up in Houston flood
Almost as soon as the water began seeping into the assisted-living centre in Dickinson, Texas, Susan Bobrick knew about it.
Bobrick, of Houston, has a sister who lives there and an employee of the centre, La Vita Bella, called residents’ relatives to alert them that water was reaching into the singlestory building.
That was a couple of hours before dawn Sunday, when the water inside was less than one inch deep. Bobrick, 68, said she was told that emergency responders had instructed staff members and residents to stay put. But as the day went on, the water continued to rise.
Bobrick got a glimpse inside La Vita Bella after an image was posted on social media.
The photo offered a disconcerting tableau that at first glance was hard to believe: It appeared to show a room inside the centre, with an old popcorn machine, a black-and-white cat, a lamp and a table with bottles of water. Several residents appeared calm in their wheelchairs and armchairs.
But all of them were waist-high in murky water.
A Twitter user, Timothy J. McIntosh, posted the image Sunday morning. Other Twitter users expressed shock while some said the image was fake. McIntosh insisted it was real. He wrote on Twitter that he was in Florida and that the image involved his family. He did not respond to requests for comment Sunday, but he told the Daily News, a Galveston County newspaper, that his wife’s mother owned La Vita Bella and had taken the picture.
Bobrick first saw it in a text message from her daughter. There in the background, she recognized her sis- ter, Ruth, whose family declined to share her last name to protect her privacy.
Bobrick said Ruth, 64, had a blanket draped over her shoulder.
“That is my sister,” she said. “And she has a long-term head injury from a drunk driver, who hit her when she was 19 years old.”
On Sunday afternoon, Bobrick said, a centre employee called with good news: an evacuation was underway and the residents — more than a dozen — were being relocated.
Ken Clark, a Galveston County commissioner, confirmed Sunday that the residents had been rescued, although he could not say for sure how many.
He said the furor over the photo was not what brought emergency responders to the scene.
“We knew about it before it hit social media,” he said. “We were working on a solution for the nursing home and it was in progress, so social media can sometimes leave one with the wrong impression.”