In the wake of Hurricane Beryl's tear through Southeast Texas, a concerning issue has emerged: numerous senior living facilities are struggling without power. According to the Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council (SETRAC), at least 36 nursing homes and 61 assisted living facilities were still coping with outages as reported by KHOU 11. The situation is dire for residents like the parents of Janet Martinez, who are forced to confront the sweltering heat. "My dad's on oxygen, my mom requires medication that has to be chilled and the ice only lasts so long in the ice chest," Martinez told KHOU 11. "They're sitting in there and it's so hot. It's concerning. These facilities should take priority."
Officials are voicing their unease about the facilities hit by the power outages. Texas Director of Emergency Management Nim Kidd made it clear during a press conference that senior facility operators will be held accountable to ensure residents' safety. "That location is responsible for the health, safety, and welfare of the patients and residents that are there, it is that facility's responsibility," Kidd stated. However, the reality on the ground seems to grimly differ from these assertions. Families are quickly losing patience, and some, like Martinez, are opting to move their loved ones to hotels to better manage care.
The distress in Houston is echoing with similar urgency as facilities are left in the dark. Over at Treemont Living Community in SW Houston, residents have been navigating their surroundings in near-blackout conditions since the storm's impact. KPRC 2 was invited by resident Deirdre McClain to document the conditions, according to the account in a report by Click2Houston. "This is the third day that we are without electricity," McClain expressed. The situation is not a mere inconvenience but a potential health hazard, evidenced by Houston firefighters being called to assist residents in distress.
Compounding the immediate threat is the troublesome revelation that while nursing homes are generally required to have backup generators, there's no mandate for them to have to run air conditioning—a necessity to prevent heat-related illnesses. Greg Shelley from the Harris County Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program at Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston underscored the risk, saying, “Nursing homes are required to have generators, but they’re only required to operate a little bit of things, not necessarily, the heating and ventilation. The majority of facilities don’t have the ability to run air conditioning off their generators and that puts the older population at risk of hyperthermia because it doesn’t take much of a body temperature change to put them in great risk.”
McClain's frustration was evident in her statement to Click2Houston: "Investment Property Services, if they are the owner of this property, and the management here some of the management here, they are not doing everything that they can to ensure that the residents are safe. This is a dangerous place to be in."
