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Only 1/3 of nursing home patients evacuated before Katrina hit

Houston Chronicle:

Bob Bates became the unwitting arbiter of life and death on Aug. 27, the day he decided which of 370 nursing home residents would be ferried out of Hurricane Katrina's path and which would be left to face the onslaught.

Frustrated when just three of eight promised buses arrived, he was able to get only 120 out. Bates, a nursing home manager, found buses for the others Sept. 1 — three days after the storm.

By then, lethal heat and squalid conditions at the Chateau Living Center had delivered damage of their own. The last bus rolled past downed trees in suburban Kenner after midnight.

They left behind 13 bodies.

Although tragic accounts of stranded elderly who died in nursing homes emerged early in the storm's aftermath, only now, as families begin to receive answers and investigators probe problems at 13 homes, is Katrina's true toll on the sick and elderly becoming clear.

At least 139 from nursing homes died during the storm or its aftermath, according to Houston Chronicle interviews with dozens of residents, families, investigators and administrators — some of whom confirmed deaths for the first time.

All told, the dead from nursing homes account for about 10 percent of Louisiana deaths from the storm. Most died not as floodwaters rose or even in the immediate hours after the storm, according to interviews, but instead succumbed after days in brutal conditions. Their deaths and the effects on survivors represent the worst medical catastrophe for the elderly in recent U.S. history.

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