Urgency grows as nursing homes go days without power
TAMPA (FOX 13) - Dozens of complaints have come in about loss of power at assisted living facilities and nursing homes around the Bay Area.
Duke Energy says it has been able to prioritize some assisted living facilities for the elderly in restoring power, but not all.
Kris Gregg's mother is at one that got its electricity back on Thursday. She said it had been a difficult week.
"My mother is blind. She can not walk. She can not talk," she said. "It was pitch black, and it was hot."
Three-and-a-half days without power at Cross Terrace in Dunedin led to her boiling point. She and the nursing home called Duke Energy numerous times.
"This is a nursing home with people who can't advocate for themselves in 90-plus degrees," said Gregg.
It's a scene that has replayed itself all over Tampa Bay as power companies worked to restore millions of customers.
LINK: 8 dead, 115 evacuated from Florida nursing home without power
Electricity at Good Hope of Pinellas is at only 70 percent strength, not enough to run A/C.
"We have been able to keep the air at a constant flow until today," said Teresa Smith, a worker at the facility. "It is too hot, it is too much."
They evacuated 30 residents to Bristol Court, a few miles away.
"We do take care of our residents because we love our family," she said. "This is our family."
Duke Energy says it is working with county emergency coordinators to check off a list of nursing homes that are without power.
They said Good Hope was not on it, but that Cross Terrace was. Its power was restored Thursday at around 6.
Four nursing homes we called said their power was restored in the last 24 hours.
Irma has led to louder calls for stricter backup plans for old-age homes.
"I want somebody in the legislature, somebody with power, to be the voice we can't be," said Gregg.
Mayor Buckhorn in the City of Tampa said after what happened in South Florida, code enforcement checked all 100 assisted living facilities in that city for any code violations.
They have not found any.
The hope is to have power back on at Good Hope by the end of Friday.