Sandy highlights nursing home evacuation troubles
In Superstorm Sandy’s wake, health experts and regulators are warning that thousands of nursing homes nationwide are still ill-prepared for a natural disaster.
The late October storm was the latest in a string of disasters to reveal gaps in emergency planning, despite an industry-wide effort to improve preparedness in the years since Hurricane Katrina.
Even in New York City, where disaster readiness has been a way of life since 9/11, seaside nursing homes and assisted living centers struggled to evacuate 6,300 residents from their flooded or powerless buildings in the days after the storm.