12 Nursing Home Residents Evacuated to Tangipahoa Warehouse During Hurricane Ida Have Died
During Hurricane Ida, hundreds of nursing home residents from several parishes were evacuated to a Tangipahoa Parish warehouse. It's now been reported that 12 of those residents have died.
All total, more than 800 residents from seven facilities in Orleans, Lafourche, Jefferson and Terrebonne Parishes were taken there during the evacuation period of the storm.
The facility was actually a former pesticide plant and the nursing home residents were living in unsanitary conditions.
One of the residents, Wade Heaton, described the conditions as follows: "It was a warehouse of death...hot, stuffy, smelly, scary, and dangerous. We only got fed once a day if we were lucky."
The Louisiana Department of Health previously confirmed seven deaths out of all the evacuees in the first week after the storm.
Five of the 12 deaths have been deemed as "storm-related" by officials. That means that coroners have yet to link the remaining seven deaths directly to Hurricane Ida or the evacuation.
LDH has revoked the licenses of and terminated Medicaid provider agreements with the seven nursing homes that evacuated their residents to the warehouse.
Several lawsuits have been filed in the wake of the mass evacuation, which has been tied to Baton Rouge businessman Bob Dean.