Death in Osceola retirement community not Irma-related

Retired nurse found dead in her apartment died of natural causes, doctor says

Although she was found dead in a flooded Osceola County retirement community after Hurricane Irma, Marlene Lowry’s death won’t be classified as a storm-related death, the OrangeOsceola Medical Examiner’s Office said Wednesday.

Lowry’s primary doctor determined her death was by natural causes, so the medical examiner’s office will never receive her body for an autopsy, said Sheri Blanton, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner.

Storm-related deaths are determined by county medical examiners and reported to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Florida Division of Emergency Management, who tally statewide totals, a spokesman for the division said. As of Wednesday, 44 deaths in Florida had been blamed on the storm.

Lowry, a 74-year-old retired nurse from Michigan, was found dead in her bed Sept. 12, the same day rescuers evacuated about 500 seniors from the Good Samaritan Society — Kissimmee Village.

One of her sons, Klint Lowry, said the family will likely never know what their mother’s final moments were like and when exactly she died.

“In a situation like this, you have all sorts of ‘what ifs,’ and you just don’t know,” Lowry said Wednesday. “A person’s time is a person’s time. If she’s not in the tally, it’s kind of irrelevant — she’s gone.”

Marlene Lowry’s only daughter, Karrie Wiecek returned to her mother’s apartment Wednesday with officials from the village to assess damage and collect her mother’s belongings. There, she said she found the unit had about an inch of water damage. “We’ll be able to get a lot of things out,” Wiecek said.

She walked by the village community center, where officials showed her a memorial of her late mother that expressed sympathies to the family. The plaque had the wrong date of death, she said.

The family took issue with the village’s response to the death, including a message on its website stating that all staff members and residents were safe and accounted for.

Linda Studer, Good Samaritan Society vice president for operations, said the company regretted the message and “there was no intent to be deceptive at all.”

The note was removed from website Wednesday afternoon.

On Sept. 10 and Sept. 11, Hurricane Irma doused Shingle Creek with about 8 inches of rain, which led to mass flooding of the village. Officials had to use airboats to evacuate some of the seniors as the waters continued to rise.

When Lowry’s family hadn’t heard from her after Hurricane Irma and their calls to her went straight to voicemail, they became concerned. They called deputies, who went to check on her . Once inside the apartment — where she lived alone — investigators found her body. the