Plans should include provisions for fire, severe weather, natural disasters — like an earthquake — and missing residents. The state also requires that facilities train their employees in emergency procedures and carry out regular disaster exercises or drills.
The Regional Nursing Home/Assisted Living Disaster Planning Committee meets every three months at Green River Area Development District to work on issues such as resident evacuation and other aspects of disaster planning to keep a vulnerable population as safe as possible.
"Preparedness will determine how an event will turn out," said Larry Koerber, director of Henderson's Emergency Management Agency, at a recent GRADD meeting. "The old cliché is true — the event's first five minutes is how the rest of the incident will go.
"If during the first five minutes there is organization, you'll have a better incident turnout than if you have a bunch of ‘What do I do now?' because it's only going to get worse."
Vicki Connor, a planner with Daviess County Emergency Management Agency, said the Disaster Planning Committee meetings are fairly well attended by facility officials, but it could be better. The committee doesn't have the authority to force facility officials to participate, but they are invited to attend, and their suggestions and input are welcomed, Connor said.
The committee, which includes emergency management agencies, GRADD and fire departments, will help any facility formulate a disaster plan. It also encourages facilities to update their plans, review policies and procedures with staff, educate new employees and perform drills to stay sharp.
"They should do at least three separate drills every year, for fire, tornado and earthquake," Connor said.
Koerber said that "unless a preparedness plan is practiced, it's just another book on the shelf.”
"Disaster preparedness needs to be a priority," he said. "There should be a safety meeting at a facility every month so the staff's response in a disaster is automatic and not, ‘Do what we told you to do six years ago.' "
Terry Brownson, executive director at Wendell Foster Campus for Developmental Disabilities, said his organization "needs to review and update our plan."
"Part of the reason is because (Owensboro Health Regional Hospital) moved (from Parrish Avenue to Pleasant Valley Road)," he said. "For a temporary evacuation, we could take our individuals to the hospital.
"Now that things have changed, we have to look at taking our people elsewhere."
Connor said that facilities with separate buildings on their campuses, such as WFC has, could evacuate residents to those other structures if only one building is affected by a disaster. If all of the buildings are affected, other arrangements must be made. Koerber said the key is advance planning, which could include drawing up agreements among fellow organizations to share a facility in an emergency.
"Owensboro is a very Christian-based city, so we work well with each other," said Sister Francis Theresa, administrator at the Carmel Home, a long-term care facility.
Sister Francis Theresa said the Carmel Home's plan includes several disaster scenarios.
"If there's a fire, we have separate areas in the home that we could evacuate to," she said. "If there's a flood, we're on higher ground, and we do have a second floor, so we could move our residents up there. But if the flooding is that bad, then the whole of Owensboro is probably destroyed.
"The 2000 tornado destroyed the trees in our park and a pole barn on campus. When the tornado came our way, it just lifted up and (missed) the main building and just took some shingles off. We did a lot of praying. That's part of our disaster plan, too."
Sister Francis Theresa said the Carmel Home is updating its disaster plan to deal with a new concern — acts of violence, such as if someone with a gun gets past security.
"We do different types of emergency drills every month," said Phillip Travis, administrator at Wellington Parc of Owensboro. "You can never be 100 percent prepared for every event, but you've got to train and be prepared the best you can."
Disaster planning also includes stockpiling supplies — such as food and water — and having generators and fuel for a backup power source.
"During the ice storm (in 2009), we were fine in terms of our main facility because we had back-up generators," Brownson said. "We moved our individuals from the independent living homes to the main building. We set up therapy pads and made it comfortable. Our people kind of enjoyed it.
"It was like a big camping trip."
Connor said that since the ice storm, emergency services has stockpiled 600 cots, blankets, sheets and pillows for use in disaster shelters at three Owensboro churches — First Baptist, Good Shepherd and Owensboro Christian — and a trailer with 200 more that can be moved wherever it's needed during a crisis.
Steve Mitchell, Owensboro Fire Department chief, has been in the fire service more than 30 years in Illinois, Iowa and Kentucky, and his experience is that nursing home fires typically occur in commercial dryers in laundry rooms or maintenance areas. Although in one of his pre-Owensboro experiences, a fire began when a cigarette was smuggled to a nursing home resident and the bedding material caught fire after the man lit his cigarette up.
"When I walked in, it was chaos, but nursing home officials knew what they were doing because they practiced it," Mitchell said. "Some residents tried to self-evacuate and got out of their beds and went into the hallway and got lost — that's how thick the smoke was — but our firefighters found them.
"The smoker was treated for smoke inhalation."
Koerber said the more detailed the emergency plan, the better, even though not every single scenario can be anticipated.
"What happens if you evacuate people into the parking lot, and it's 7 degrees outdoors and snow is flying, or it's 107 degrees?" Koerber said. "That's why having mutual arrangements with other facilities are important so you can move residents there as quickly as possible.
"You also need to check weekly if a resident's condition has changed. Maybe they were able to move around in a wheelchair before, but this week something happened and they're bed-ridden. That changes how you're going to transport them.
"Resident and patient survivability is a top priority, so you have to set time aside to train. If an event occurs, you're expected to respond and do it right the first time because you're not going to get a second shot."
Koerber said "most of the fatalities in a nursing home, assisted living facility or retirement home disaster is after-the-fact."
"It's stress management," he said. "You move people out of their rooms and they start stressing. You move them out of the facility and they really get stressed because they don't know where they're going.
"The facility is their security blanket, and if they're being moved and don't know where they're going, you're ripping the security blanket out from under them. And if they're fragile anyway, it may cause a tailspin they may not recover from.
"Letting them know what's happening and that they're safe helps the situation."
(c) 2013 McClatchy News Service
