{"id":9004,"date":"2018-08-24T18:51:22","date_gmt":"2018-08-24T18:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=9004"},"modified":"2018-08-24T18:51:22","modified_gmt":"2018-08-24T18:51:22","slug":"report-examines-failures-to-protect-vulnerable-texans-during-harvey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=9004","title":{"rendered":"Report Examines Failures to Protect Vulnerable Texans During Harvey"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_9005\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9005\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9005\" src=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/gr-63661-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/gr-63661-1-1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/gr-63661-1-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/gr-63661-1-1-405x270.jpg 405w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/gr-63661-1-1-60x40.jpg 60w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9005\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A new report suggests better disaster response protocols for assisted living facilities in Texas. (SC National Guard\/Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>by Mary Kuhlman<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><strong>AUSTIN, Texas \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0After Hurricane Harvey in 2017, a viral photo of residents sitting in waist deep water at a Texas assisted living facility made headlines.<\/p>\n<p>However, a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/states.aarp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-left-adrift-report.pdf\" target=\"parent\">new report<\/a>\u00a0shows that was just a glimpse of the failures to protect some of the most vulnerable Texans.<\/p>\n<p>The stories of assisted living residents who were abandoned and harmed in Harvey\u2019s wake are highlighted in the report from AARP Texas.<\/p>\n<p>Amanda Fredrickson, associate state director of outreach and advocacy with AARP Texas, says those stories include a facility in Victoria that missed someone when evacuating residents to Cedar Park.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the chaos that comes sometimes with emergencies, they didn\u2019t follow their own plan, and as a result, a resident was left behind,\u201d Fredrickson relates. \u201cThey didn\u2019t figure that out till four hours later. That resident was found locked in her room.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The report notes that in Houston, residents of a facility were left completely unattended during the storm, and residents of another facility were at risk of health issues because of potential mold and mildew from the failure to make adequate repairs after flooding.<\/p>\n<p>Fredrickson says many of the facilities that were cited for violations faced little if any fines.<\/p>\n<p>As Texas enters peak hurricane season, Fredrickson notes that the report is a wake-up call for better policies to protect residents of assisted living facilities, which have less stringent disaster preparedness regulations than nursing homes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause assisted living facilities are the fastest growing segment of our long-term care services providers, it\u2019s time, if not past time, for more attention to be paid on how they are licensed and regulated,\u201d she states.<\/p>\n<p>The report makes several recommendations including improved and expanded training and emergency drills for workers, more stringent preparedness protocols for assisted living facilities, and a tracking system to ensure facilities are living up to licensing requirements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Mary Kuhlman AUSTIN, Texas \u2013\u00a0After Hurricane Harvey in 2017, a viral photo of residents sitting in waist deep water at a Texas assisted living facility made headlines. However, a\u00a0new report\u00a0shows that was just a glimpse of the failures to protect some of the most vulnerable Texans. The stories of assisted living residents who were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9004"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9006,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9004\/revisions\/9006"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}