I will bet dollars to donuts that the investigation will show that they were folks wanting to call 911 the very day power went out and evacuate all those poor people. But they were overruled due to the cost of the evacuation and the loss of revenue once the people left. I hope I am wrong.

Money's always involved, of course, of course. This facility had no backup generator for the cooling system. According to what I read, Medicare paid part of the cost for one for another 300-bed facility, that owner saying cost was no excuse for this facility's lack.

The owner of this facility operates within a web of regulations that requires many expenses be met as a matter of course. Our son owns a company that installs and maintains such things as electronic door systems so residents can't wander off, and facilities are typically in contact immediately when they have a problem. It's the law.

Mundane as it is, I'll put bad management at the top of the list -- bad judgement, inadequate disaster plan, and especially failure of individuals there to act in proportion to the increasing emergency.

And definitely inadequate government regulations, which are supposed to make sure greed and incompetence don't rule. They were also supposed to be improved after Katrina, so why no requirement for a backup generator? Obviously, various failures contributed to this.

Sun Sentinel:

And it's not like they can just run out and hook up power to anyone who needs it. In many cases they are having to rebuild the entire network. It's not FPL's job to protect the old people in this home it is the owner's job

And I totally agree there is a lack of government regulation. Everyone hates regulations until that lack kills the grandparents.

There was a hospital with power in the vicinity. And that hospital evacuated the old folks once they knew of the situation.

What you're seeing is the facility looking for people to share the blame. During Charlie we were without power for 13 days. Had someone called Orlando utilities and told them that because we had no power people were dying, they could not have just run out and give us power. The whole power system was torn up.

Someone involved with this facility is going to jail. Unfortunately, we all know it's going to be some small time manager who will get the blame. The owners will find a way to dodge blame.

and it will be interesting to know if he was directly involved in the decision making -- or in the lack of it. If he knew what was happening and didn't provide the obviously badly needed leadership, he probably wouldn't want either of us on his jury.

But a lot of buts. You missed the part where the nursing home claims the power company was supposed to come out four times. IF true, there was communication. Nursing homes are lower priority than hospitals, but not no priority.

But after a hurricane there are lots of places that the power company just cannot hook up quickly no matter how dire.

Nursing homes are required to have an emergency plan for just these situations This one either did not have one, had one that was inadequate or failed to enact it.

And there are countless nursing homes and rehabilitation centers in Florida. It's telling that so far this is the only one where the shit hit the fan. All the others managed to keep their residence safe. To me that speaks volumes.

I will be shocked if after investigations this does not come down to greed.

I hope you have a great weekend.

Last edited Sun Sep 17, 2017, 06:53 AM - Edit history (1)

In most basic terms, it would not have happened if I'd been there, hospital right across the street, etc. And I"m guessing not you.

have been the best option.

and informed them the seriously affected were being brought to the ER.

How come none of the other nursing homes had this issue?

we'll just sit here and let people roast to death until they do"?

Gross incompetence of the highest order on the facility's part.

it gets hot here but south Florida is a whole new level of hot. I don't think seniors realize how incapacitating it can be in the summer. Heck, I don't want to go there in the summer.

snow and icy cold. It is a red state but my area is Blue.

There's a reason they named UF's stadium The Swamp and it ain't just because the team is called the Gators.

well to do snowbirds mostly

Storms probably worse now, but not enough to stem inflow.

People from up North (NY NJ PA) who had retired to FLA but moved half way back to the Carolinas. Way cheaper cost of living and less travel time for relatives. It's happening a lot from what I hear.

I live in NC - moved here from Northeast Ohio - and it's a well-known phenomenon in the area.

My brother did that.

Moved from "The Villages' near Orlando to Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Never again. It's not just hot; it's so humid you can't even breathe. I don't know how people even survive in that kind of heat and humidity - maybe it's something you can get used to, but I don't even want to try.

You get slapped in the face with a hot wet washcloth, it is like that.
I think the real Scarlett O'Hara drowned in that air.

I moved from Northern Fla. to Mobile and found the humidity much less.
Plus Mobile had streets that actually inclined.

I don't get the rush to So. Fla. at all, but if someone has to go, let them be young and healthy....and with gills.

Twice as a kid (Disney World once, visiting family) and once as an adult.

Never again. I can handle the cold but not the heat. Summer in NJ is brutal enough for me.

I want to move to a colder climate (I'm nowhere near being a senior).

I deal with winter by wearing more clothes, but I can't handle extreme heat with humidity.

It was 83 when I got into work today. I'm already having my Pumpkin Spice coffees now dammit I want sweater weather.

but cooling off starting tomorrow. If you want a colder climate, though (most of the time), this is the place. The only time winter is a real PITA is when it snows a whole lot, making driving slow and sometimes hazardous. Since I'm retired, I just look out the window and make a cup of coffee. The cold is manageable; even when it's below zero that doesn't usually last more than a few days at a time.

Cold, but liberal. Keith Ellison's district.

and just moved to VT. I hated the South and the heat was unreal (the humidity was so bad - you could just see it as you walked!)

the only way to dress for the heat is to wear an air-conditioned car.

Born here, and spent most of my life here.

Live on the east coast of Central FL, and am on day 5 of no power.

Between the heat and the mosquitos in my house, I'm ready to pack it up and move into a freezer in the northwest.

that happened before the 2008 main event.

I can testify that the "old wives tale is true." I remember walking about in Nevada, on the Las Vegas Strip. I was thirsty, yes, though that was fixed by gulping the cheap bottled water sold on the streets. I walked the length of it, and remember how easy it was to breathe. Keep in mind, I did not realize I had a lung infection at the time, and I sure as hell did not realize it because I was breathing like I was ten years younger. I was picked up by my brother in law and sister, who looked at me like I was crazy; it was a 107 degrees out there, and people were told not to do long walks. I laughed because I knew what a mere 90 degrees felt like in Florida. Lo and behold, it was 107, later 112, and to this day, I have not drawn any breath of air as easy as I did in Nevada.

I found it absolutely unbearable (same with Phoenix and SoCal). It felt like my skin was cracking.

I was just in Orlando a week before the storms, and I actually found the level of humidity pretty pleasant.

Plus you can depend on thunderstorms in Florida. Those are rare here especially in the summertime.

I lived there for 25 years. Summers are furnace-like and unchanging. One boring miserable day after another.

Summers in Las Vegas are easily the low point of my life. Fortunately I was able to leave town during summer for all but 3 years but I still remember those specific years when I was stuck, and all the dreadful days and nights.

Now I'm back in Miami. Give me 90 and humidity over 115 and dry. It's not remotely close. Miami offers the wonderful afternoon showers as a change up, although I have to say given climate change those showers are not as dependable anymore and tend to come in waves and lulls.

Anyway, everyone loves to overreact. I knew stories like this would show up. Here's one that would have surfaced if Irma had taken a different path: If the storm had made a direct hit on Miami with catastrophic damage there would have been an outcry for the University of Miami to change its nickname.

After living here in the South for many years, I went back to the West Coast to see family.
I felt that I could get a breath. Nice summery, decent temps, but I was used to breathing in something that "felt" like I was breathing.


The other difference.....everything looked crisp and sharp in detail.
We are used to the slightly dreamy quality of things down here, esp, since the angle of the sun is different.

We have too many people in Florida already.

Maybe some here will decide to leave.

it's no longer that cheap to live here. The days of cheap housing are over, the schools are beginning to really suck, and there are too many maga idjits, and the traffic is almost like norhtern cities during rush hour.

been here 40 years in the same house, watched my property insurance go from $165.00/yr to $3500.00/yr and that is without flood insurance.

I'm getting ready to start looking. Hopefully I'm not too old.

21M is plenty

But not as bad as S. Louisiana where I was raised.

If we still lived in houses designed before AC it would be more bearable. My family has been southern for centuries and you get used to it. They would all sleep on the screened porch on the worst nights. Even called them sleeping porches.

My grandfather always came to the house for lunch, washed off and took a nap in the worst of the heat.

But take an old person in a modern building with no air and it becomes a death trap.

Modern office buildings, with their large, unopenable windows, become hothouse ovens as soon as the AC goes out.

our hotel room had a high ceiling with transoms and a ceiling fan, and there were trees outside the windows. It was extremely pleasant with no AC.

I was also recently in a house in North Carolina with exactly the same setup. They have ceiling fans and a window above the back door that creates air circulation upstairs. Very, very pleasant. The back yard (which faces west) is thick with trees so the afternoon/evening sun doesn't set in.

We've been down here for 29 years now, and have spouse and I have both recently retired. We have both put down strong roots in this state, have contributed well in our working years, and have degrees from Florida universities, Go Gators.
We're among those seriously thinking about leaving Florida now.
Things have changed a great deal since we arrived here to live in the late 80's.
Politically, the state has turned into a republican hell hole - helped mightily by scores of retired civil servants from the NE who fled Long Island and other places after fleeing from Brooklyn and any other place that they saw a person of color in. These fools joined the ignorants already here in turning the state red, perhaps indelibly. There's still a good number of locals and others that remember and miss the days when the Governor and a good part of the Tallahassee House was Dem, but we're in the minority now I fear.
Weather-wise, things have also changed for the worse. We see it everyday, all year long. The vaunted state crop - citrus - has been virtually decimated by disease, storms, and over-development. Lake Okeechobee has become a giant cesspool thanks to the mismanagement of Florida's natural waterways. They spill out the toxic contents to the east and west these days, thereby polluting the Caloosahatchee River to the west and the once pristine St. Lucie estuary to the east. A fix will take decades and besides, we can't disrupt the sugar industry who now owns the lands blocking the flow to the Everglades, once the natural filter. To the north of the great Lake, toxic runoff from over-development in the Orlando watershed flows into the Lake. It's a small world after all.
Meanwhile, offshore in the Gulf and Atlantic Ocean, the water regularly goes to 90F in the summers now providing rocket fuel to the bowling balls coming off the African coast. After a lull for the last decade, the storms are back and only increasing in intensity and regularity.
Our homes, for the most part, are built for storms. But retirees, like myself, have a time with boarding up, shuttering up, and moving everything off the open areas of our homes, and then waiting the storm out in a state of ultra high anxiety. The aftermath can be just as trying with power outages, food and fuel shortages, and generally a big mess to clean up - not to mention the $20K deductable for "wind damage" that many of us carry on the non-insurance policies.
The winters are still blissful, with low humidity (relatively), and comfortable temps. We even break out a jacket now and again.
But the time has come to assess whether the winters are worth all of the summertime blues. It's not the heat - I'm used to that, even play golf in it (the rates are much lower in the summer . It's everything else. Things have changed.
We're looking into other pastures and I suspect our Florida adventure will soon come to an end.

Come to California. The Central Coast is sparcely populated and lovely, with comfortable summers you can spend exploring the gorgeous beaches, wineries, the Hearst Castle or soaking in a hot tub fed by hot mineral springs at Avila Beach - pure bliss. The only problem with the Central Coast (as opposed to LA and SF) is there are not many good jobs. But if you have a steady retirement check, you'll be in good shape.

Beautiful.

The ocean water is just too cold for a beach person like me, even in the summer. And if you go inland, you'll run into a lot of righties, like the nutbags who wanted to secede from CA and form the "State of Jefferrson." If the goal is to try to get away from righties, No. Cal. might not be the best choice. But they have the best pot in the world!

In fact, the HEAT is on right now, HEAT!

How ever I love this weather as I have a medical condition that severely limits where I can go/live. I did not know about it until after I moved here from a place with a very similar climate that has less rain and is about 10 degrees warmer in the wintertime and that is San Francisco. (!)

It is a lot cheaper to live here than anywhere else in Calif. and if you like this type of weather, it is great!

Not a whole lot of work here though, mostly low paying jobs.

Every summer we go camping up by Lake Trinity to get our fill of greenery. The smell of pine is magnificent.

Lots of old growth to be found as well as long as you know where to go!

It has been cold here lately. So cold that the furnace is kicking on.

I guess summertime is done and gone ...

I love SOFL, except for the COL and the bad elderly drivers!

Orlando is way more hellish in the summer than down here -- the coastal breezes keep us cooler.

Mérida, MX

One of my favorite places.

Due to global warming the temps there are just too high for comfort. Just an FYI

wintertime cold, drizzle, overcast, rain, and all, for what sounds like the agonies of Hell in Florida. Or any other place in the Sun Belt.

As I grow older and more susceptible to wintertime chill, I'll just bundle up a little warmer, and stay in my little green patch of Paradise.

I visited Florida once. Never again...

Christmas just doesn't seem like Christmas without the cold and the potential for snow.

Not only four seasons, but being surrounded by the Great Lakes means there is a natural buffer (usually) for extreme heat and cold.

As far as autumn goes, the leaves in the UP rival those anywhere on earth.

The leaves in the Porcupine Mountains, Trap Hills and the Keweenaw Peninsula are breathtaking.

For all of the above reasons.

I love the international flavor, and winter weather. I love the water, entertainment, and sunshine.

The rebubs haven't taken over; Democrats still outnumber the enemy. Fl is the training ground for gerrymandering, hacking DREs, and voter suppression. Otherwise, the reds would be doomed.

We sometimes have extremes but the spring and fall are usually wonderful, winter milder and sunnier than most places in the north, and summer isn't as bad as some places described in this thread. If NoVA is too costly or crowded, consider the many other parts of the state.

On edit--this invitation is extended only to Dems!

We have family with huge electric bills, and their property tax is obscene.

They've had enough.

I bought a 13 year old house on one acre for $90,000, property taxes are $700 a year and home insurance is $550 a year. It's red as hell though, there are 70 churches in this county and only 17,000 people! I can live on almost nothing here though and there are p,entry of medical resources available within an hour drive.

The wife and I are thinking about moving up to North Florida when we retire.

As a former Realtor, I noticed clients went for a few years of being a bit more concerned about hurricanes but that was soon forgotten. People just made sure to get hurricane glass. I just got my power back on and already pretty forgotten it - just as I did with the last 2 hurricanes that the power went out for a week or so. I know it sounds goofy but I will never move back to that cloudy, freezing cold winters that last forever.

I wouldn't mind be a bit further north in Florida like Tampa/St. Pete because it is s bit cooler. South Florida is a bit too hot sometimes but unless you have an outdoor job - you go from your very well air conditioned home to your very air/conditioned car to your air-conditioned job, air conditioned shop or to the refreshing pool that most everyone has in their community or home or neighborhood. I love the sunshine, mainly cheerful people instead of glum, non-smiling people and always having an option to go to the beach or pool anytime I want.

I'm getting close to retirement
I'd like to move there, but my wife's not convinced yet.
Texas is not an option, except maybe Austin.
And although not widely not known, it's not the taxes
In IL, there is no tax on income from retirement savings, including pensions.

He moved into one of those retirement homes.

Anyway, the Irma missed him luckily. I was sure worried about him.

I didn't ask if he was happy about the move into this retirement home. He was living in New Jersey before the move to Florida.

Husband was out of work and got a job there. We moved back up North last February when he retired. Both of us could not take the heat there, even after all of those years.

We have always told people planing on retiring full time to spend a week in the Summer down there. Our Snowbird neighbors were in their 80's and considered it until they spent a week in Naples in August. They did not go out. The wife said she couldn't go in her pool because the water temp was 90 degrees. Hot Tub with a Sauna outside. The water temp at the Gulf Beaches also gets to around 90 degrees in the Summers when the air temps are in the 90's. It is nothing at all like Season (Winters).

Power outages only happen during storms? lol Accidents happen. I can remember one time we were without power almost 10 hours in the Summer. Construction workers caused it. We kept the windows and doors shut for as long as we could to keep the cool air inside, but eventually it got brutal inside. Open the windows to let the breezes in? What breezes? 5 mpr. winds? That too is very common when the temps are in the 90's and the Heat Index close to or over 100 degrees. This is why people buy home generators.

One of husband's former coworkers planned on moving. He was supposed to start work in 2 weeks up North while his wife and kids stayed in Florida until their house sold. His house had a lot of damage from the hurricane and will now have to spend time and money to fix it. How long will that take? How long will it take for someone to buy it? Decline the new job and start all over again? They both hate the heat and want 4 Seasons. He said to us, "I am screwed".

Why didn't that Nursing Home have it's own Generator? They never experienced any power outages except during a hurricane? Yeah, right. If the residents could not go to a public shelter, why couldn't they be taken to one of Naples three hospitals? It is not Season now. They must have had beds available. Insurance and money should not be a factor in an emergency. Putting side Scott, it sounds like this Nursing Home really dropped the ball with this; both not having a generator and not evacuating.

..can anyone live in that humidity?? even my phone got damaged.

If I spend 5 days in a low humidity climate my lips and hands start cracking and my nose can bleed. 50 years of humid just changes the body I guess.

I love Florida and never want to leave although I will eventually move to the eastern panhandle gulf coast. Motoring across the waters of the gulf as the sun comes up to start a day fishing is my idea of paradise.

Have a nice day.

If the humidity goes up the temps go down and vice versa. The weather in summer is very reliable without much temperature fluctuations. If it rains, it is tropical in nature. Winds always from the south and east. San Antonio would probably be too dry for you. We are hotter, but we are still very humid. Move further west and it's dry, move further east and it's more humid. The heat index seems to remain the same along the 30th parallel. San Antonio, Houston and New Orleans will almost always have the same heat index.

They came through Irma without ever losing power, but hope it's their last hurricane ever.

My sister and I were discussing this yesterday and neither of us wants to deal with year-round heat and humidity. We'd also want to keep our present homes in Illinois as an escape during the summer months, but we can't afford two houses. Plus, our immediate family is here and proximity to the younger generations is important to us.

And not only retirees.

I get why people are fleeing the north, but sometimes it seems like we have more Ohioans, New Yorkers, New Jersians here than they do in their home states.

And I am one of those who does not like hot summers.

I now live in Santa Fe, NM, and manage quite well without a/c. It helps that I have no windows that face directly west. Plus, all summer long it cools down enough overnight that I open windows and doors for the cool air, close them in the heat of the day, such as it is, and have fresh air coming in most of the time.

Not to mention I don't have mosquitoes here. Or cockroaches.