Trudy Lampson
With an estimated 13 million people affected and cost of $125 billion, Hurricane Harvey caused widespread devastation when it made landfall on August 25, 2017. Among the devastation were residents of La Vita Bella, a Texas assisted living facility.
In the photo seen around the country, La Vita Bella residents sat in waist-deep floodwater. The origin of the viral photo was a tweet from Timothy McIntosh. The Tampa, Florida native tweeted the photo when the owner of La Vita Bella, his mother-in-law Trudy Lampson, reached out for help in spreading the word.
A report from AARP Texas stated:
According to the state inspection documents, the administrator of La Vita Bella made the decision to have residents shelter in place. When flood waters began filling the facility and it was necessary to evacuate, none of the vehicles identified in the emergency preparedness and response plan were on site. The plan depended on the vehicles of the manager, the administrator and her husband, none of whom were at the facility.
In addition, this facility sits approximately 500 yards from the Dickinson Bayou, which the state found was not monitored during the storm.
Texas HHSC investigators found that the facility also had a contract with an ambulance company that requires 72 hours’ notice for evacuation. The Texas HHSC inspection report states that failure to initiate evacuation in a timely manner resulted in residents sitting in waist-deep flood water for hours, awaiting rescue.
Nearly eight hours after the facility began to flood, help arrived in the form of a resident’s family member, who brought a boat and was able to use plastic-covered mattresses to transfer four residents from the facility to a local hospital. Meanwhile, the other 11 residents were evacuated by two Army trucks from Texas City. These residents were taken to temporary shelters before being moved to a nursing facility.
Two violations were substantiated, resulting in $550 in fines ($200 for violations related to abuse, neglect and exploitation, and $350 for safety operations related to their emergency preparedness and response plan).
SOURCES