Furious officials launched investigations of a blazing hot Florida nursing home where eight people were found dead Wednesday after the facility was left without power by Hurricane Irma.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson called the disaster at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, in the town of Hollywood, about 20 miles north of Miami, “an emerging scandal of gargantuan proportions.” He said it was “inexcusable” that no one appeared to have called 911 as residents in their 70s, 80s and 90s sweltered without air conditioning in the summer Florida heat.
A nursing home employee told NBC Miami that the building was cool on Tuesday but that he returned Wednesday morning to an overheated facility.
“This is an emerging scandal of gargantuan proportions,” Nelson said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott called the situation “unfathomable,” promising to “aggressively demand answers on how this tragic event took place.”
Hollywood police launched a criminal investigation, and agents from the state attorney general’s office and the state Agency for Health Care Administration were on the scene, authorities said. State officials closed the facility Wednesday night and barred it from admitting new patients.
“This was a terrible incident. The scene was chaotic when I arrived,” said Dr. Randy Katz, medical director for emergency services at Memorial Healthcare System, where about a dozen of the 158 people who were evacuated from the facility were admitted for respiratory distress, dehydration and heat-related issues.
Katz said so many patients needed assistance that his hospital, which is just down the street, called in more than 50 doctors, nursed and other providers under a mass casualty protocol.
“I’ve definitely seen mass casualties and things to that extent, but this is something unique, something extremely sad and unfortunate for these patients and their families,” Katz said.
The Broward County medical examiner identified the victims as: Carolyn Eatherly, 78; Miguel Antonio Franco, 92; Estella Hendricks, 71; Betty Hibbard, 84; Manuel Mario Medieta, 96; Gail Nova, 71; Bobby Owens, 84; and Albertina Vega, 99.
An official cause of death wasn’t given, although the deaths were believed to be heat-related.
Hollywood police conducted welfare checks on 42 other nursing homes and similar critical care facilities throughout the city throughout the day, said Raelin Storey, a spokeswoman for the city government. The checks led fire rescue crews to transport four patients in their 70s to a hospital from an Amazing Care Inc. assisted living home as a precaution measure, she said. No further details were immediately available.
Police wouldn’t comment on whether the nursing home had a generator or whether investigators had ruled out carbon monoxide poisoning. The building was sealed as Hollywood police and investigators began their probe.
Storey said fire crews were first called to the Hollywood Hills facility at 3 a.m. ET for a report of a cardiac arrest. More fire and emergency response crews were sent when a second call came in at 4 a.m. for a patient having breathing issues, she said. Three people were found dead on the second floor, Storey said, and by 6:15 a.m., a full-scale evacuation of the facility was under way.
Storey told reporters that fire rescue crews have responded to the facility 127 times over the last 12 months, a rate she called “far above average for what we would expect for this kind of facility.”
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which regulates nursing homes across the country, gave the Hollywood facility a “below-average” rating of two stars out of five. The health inspection was one star, or “much below average.”
The nursing home has been in the dark since Irma struck over the weekend, officials said. Temperatures in South Florida have been in the 80s this week, and the low in Hollywood on Tuesday was 79 degrees.
Related: Floridians Take Stock and Begin Recovery as Irma Exits
Irma cut power to millions of Floridians and killed at least 59 other people across the Caribbean and the Southeastern United States as it rampaged across the Atlantic basin. Power had been restored to nearly 60 percent of customers, said Florida Power & Light, which said Wednesday that it had provided power to some parts of the nursing home.
Broward County Mayor Barbara Sharief said Wednesday that she had asked the utility to make it a priority to get power back for assisted living, nursing home and senior care centers.
Florida Power & Light said in a statement late Wednesday afternoon that it was limited in what it could say because of the investigations. But it said that “other critical facilities” — notably hospitals and 911 centers — were identified as higher priorities and that the nursing home was very close to a hospital that did have power.
Later Wednesday, a second south Florida nursing home, Krystal Bay Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in North Miami Beach, was evacuated. Officials didn’t say what prompted the evacuation.