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SHERRI DAY and LISA GREENEIn Hurricane Katrina's wake, safety plans for a vulnerable population are re-examined.
BATON ROUGE - With Hurricane Katrina threatening, John Bourne's family took him to the only place they thought was safe: his nursing home.
As floodwaters began rising in the Jefferson Healthcare Center's courtyard, its owners mobilized a caravan of buses and vans, evacuating residents to nursing homes around the state.
It was part of a carefully crafted plan state law requires of all nursing homes in Louisiana. Not all such plans went so smoothly.
A St. Bernard Parish nursing home failed to evacuate its residents, and 34 were left to drown in rising floodwaters. Investigators are looking into the deaths of 14 patients at the LaFon Nursing Home in eastern New Orleans. A recovery team also found eight bodies inside Bethany Home, an assisted-living center near City Park.
Still, state officials say most of Louisiana's elderly, who are among the most vulnerable during any hurricane, reached safety.
In many cases seniors who lived in nursing homes fared better than those living independently because of the required evacuation plans. Many nursing homes and hospitals also flung open their doors to people in need.
But some seniors died at the Superdome while awaiting evacuation, while others died at Louis Armstrong Airport before they could be flown out.
Godfrey White, executive director of the governor's Office of Elderly Affairs, feared the total number of dead would reach 10,000. So far, the Louisiana death toll stands at 646.
"It wasn't as devastating as we anticipated," White said, crediting a strong communications network among agencies that serve senior citizens with helping to ensure elders' safety.
More than a week before the levees burst, White directed the state's 64 Councils on Aging to encourage the elderly to evacuate. When workers delivered elders' meals or provided other services, White said, they emphasized the seriousness of evacuation pleas.
"The majority of them that were able to get the information left," White said. "We've got a lot of synergy going on, which has been very impressive."
Elder service organizations, which moved temporarily to Baton Rouge to aid evacuees, are back in their home parishes preparing to assist senior citizens when they return, White said.
In the wake of the storm, emergency officials around the country are re-examining their safety plans for the elderly.
In the Tampa Bay area, many nursing homes and assisted living facilities had to evacuate during last year's hurricanes.
When Hurricane Charley hit, Bon Secours Maria Manor in St. Petersburg moved nearly 350 people from its nursing home and assisted living facility to a local school.
Most things went well, said Luanne Reese, planning and marketing director. But translating the plan into reality wasn't perfect.
"Walking through it is different than having it on paper," Reese said. "We took every single mattress out of the building and took it with us. We learned that was a real pain in the butt."
For the next hurricane, the facility will have air mattresses, Reese said.
Bon Secours is one of 35 nursing homes in Pinellas County in an evacuation zone. Like Louisiana, each is required to have an extensive plan for how it will evacuate residents. Pinellas emergency officials will provide buses and ambulances to move them to evacuation sites.
What happened in New Orleans won't happen here, said Tampa Bay emergency officials. Nursing home staffers can't refuse to evacuate, said Gary Vickers, Pinellas emergency management director.
"It is not their choice," Vickers said. "It's not their option to say, "We're not going to move."'
In Hillsborough, the four nursing homes in evacuation zones have nearly 500 residents. Officials at all four understand the importance of evacuating, said emergency coordinator Pete Dabrowski. Still, emergency officials plan to check on each home and would force them to a safer place if needed.
"We can go in there and just take them out," Dabrowski said. "We don't want anyone to die who doesn't have to."
An additional 600 Hillsborough residents are scattered among 25 assisted living facilities in evacuation zones. Those facilities also submit emergency plans to the state, but emergency officials don't have time to check each one in a storm, Dabrowski said. Those facilities are expected to contact emergency officials if there's a problem.
That's what happened last year when Sunrise Village Assisted Living unexpectedly flooded after Hurricane Frances, Dabrowski said. Sheriff's deputies evacuated 100 residents after a retention pond flooded the facility.
In Pinellas, 118 assisted living facilities are in evacuation zones and must provide the county with evacuation plans.
As Louisiana evacuees begin to rebuild their lives, the elderly have often been a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy situation. Provided that they have no serious medical ailment, senior citizens are proving among the most psychologically resilient in the aftermath of the storm, mental health experts said.
"Folks who are in their late 70s and 80s are people who've been through difficult circumstances before," said Dr. Robert E. Reichlin, a clinical psychologist and instructor at Baylor College of Medicine who counseled evacuees in Houston.
"They've lost people. They tend to look at life differently than we do when we're in our 30s or 50s, even. They are often able to give these things a context and move forward."
Bourne, 82, wound up at Sterling Place, a nursing home near downtown Baton Rouge. Though he longs to be closer to his family, he sees his relocation as little more than a minor inconvenience.
"I don't guess it's been all that bad," said Bourne, a former oil rig worker who has been in Baton Rouge for three weeks. Sterling Place, he said, "runs a pretty nice facility."
Dr. Gary J. Kennedy, a geriatric psychiatrist at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y., counseled several Holocaust survivors after Sept. 11 and said their reaction was similar to many elderly people displaced by Katrina.
"To them, the sense was: "Here we go again. We've been through this. We know we'll prevail,"' said Kennedy, who also chairs the Geriatric Mental Health Foundation. He expects many elderly Katrina survivors to bounce back relatively quickly.
Many elders at the Red Cross Shelter in Baton Rouge's River Center bear witness to Kennedy's theory.
"There's no sense in complaining," said Anthony "Wolf Man" Peterson, a heavily bearded retired handyman whose home bordered the French Quarter. "I appreciate everything being done. Sometimes I get a little mad, but I can cope. ... We're being treated real nice. When you're feeding 2,000 people, it's hard. A lot of people forget about that."
Oralee Tyler, a 73-year-old Alzheimer's patient from Kenner, La., has made peace with her material losses and her current living situation. She is grateful for a sturdy cot, hot meals, her family and her life.
"I don't worry about anything," said Tyler, a former cook. "I say, bygones be bygones. I've gotten too old, and I can't worry about all that. I might make myself more sick than I already am."
Joseph Lawrence, 70, doesn't know where he'll go when he leaves the shelter. But that doesn't seem to matter much. A former cement layer, he said he will survive with Social Security checks and the kindness of family.
"God's got me living. Why should I worry?" Lawrence said. "You don't know when he's going to come to get you or what time he's going to come. All you know is you're living. I'm just happy that God spared my life. Tomorrow isn't promised to anybody, storm or no storm."