Desperate seniors still suffer in stifling heat
‘I started calling them murderers;” conditions worsen at some facilities
FORT LAUDERDALE – Desperate for electricity after Hurricane Irma, some retirees resorted to hanging a sign outside their complex: “Help Still No Power.”
It’s been so long and hot the residents of the Gateway Terrace in Fort Lauderdale’s Victoria Park don’t remember which day the power went out. Hurricane Irma hit South Florida on Sept. 10. Tears coursed down the cheeks of Barbara Blumlo-Driham, 68, as she sat tethered to an oxygen machine to help alleviate her chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
“It’s horrible, horrible,” she said Sunday. “A
nightmare.”
Only some of the buildings have power at Gateway Terrace, a retiree community of one-bedroom apartments and efficiencies.
Gov. Rick Scott’s office said Sunday that 2,437 of the state’s assisted-living facilities have power. There are 3,110 licensed assisted-living facilities in Florida, according to state data.
In Pompano Beach, no air conditioning in some units at The Preserve at Palm Aire led the facility to bus 13 residents to a beachside hotel Sunday.
Deerfield Beach Mayor Bill Ganz said he’s been to a number of senior housing facilities where conditions are worsening.
“Many private facilities are poorly equipped to handle these types of outages,” he said.
At Gateway Terrace, Blumlo-Driham was able to get into the library nook with air conditioning at the 257-unit affordable housing complex. But at first, the maintenance staff refused to open the alcove where she’s now set up her bedding, she said.
“I started calling them murderers,” she said.
Irma exacted its worst carnage in South Florida days after the winds stilled. At a Hollywood nursing home, eight deaths have been attributed to the lack of air conditioning.
Conditions in the hurricane’s wake have also led to a spike in numbers of patients seeking help from emergency rooms, said Dr. Louis Isaacson, director of emergency medicine for Florida Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale and for a freestanding emergency room in Davie.
The number of patients coming to the Tenet Health Corp.’s facilities in the storm’s wake represent up to a 30 percent spike over normal throughout MiamiDade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, he said.
Some are people who can’t get their prescriptions refilled or go to their primary care doctor because of power outages. Others are in homes without air conditioning or circulation.
“The temperatures in their houses are rising significantly,” Isaacson said. “They are getting dehydrated.”
News that Florida Power & Light Co. personnel were seen in the area generated shouts of excitement Sunday afternoon at Gateway, but Tony Goff, 80, has his doubts that juice would soon have the air conditioning humming.
“Every day, I hear it’s a couple of days later,” he said.
Many of the powerless have windows that won’t open because they are painted shut, Goff said.
At the Five Star Premiere Residences of Boca Raton, 83-year-old resident Connie Packman has spent nearly a week in her 89-degree apartment. Since her 87-year-old husband recently had surgery, relocating was not an option.
The assisted-living complex has power restored to some wings, but not the 40 apartments in the independent living section where the Packmans live.
“We’re desperate,” Connie Packman said.
At The Preserve at Palm Aire, the lights are on, but the air conditioning is not working, said Joe Feiner, 94, who, with his wife, 92, evacuated to a room at the Fort Lauderdale Marriott Pompano Beach Resort & Spa.
Officials there declined to discuss the situation, but Feiner said the facility is paying for their rooms, instead of having them stay another night in their independent living unit.
“We couldn’t cook, there was no TV, we couldn’t do our laundry,” he said.
Getting to the hotel late Sunday afternoon, he said, “It’s beautiful here.”
But he didn’t think it was emergency situation at Palm Aire: “We volunteered to go.”
Gloria Barton, 86, on the third floor of Gateway Terrace with her dachshund, Barbara Allen, can’t get to the ground floor because the elevator in her building is not working. She had her door open to catch as much air as possible.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said. A friend has been bringing supplies up the stairs, she said.
The communal room has power and residents have banded together to cook meals they all share.
JoAnn Daniels, 72, has been putting out meals every day since the storm struck. She’s been keeping cool at night by couch-surfing among the units with power. She said she’s worried about residents who can barely get out of their chairs, much less evacuate.
She said she has has called paramedics for three of her neighbors, and they’ve been taken to the hospital.
“I knew we were going to be having a problem,” she said.