COVID patients evacuated after loss of electricity at retirement home

BEACH DISHES, Florida – Residents of an assisted living facility in Dania Beach were evacuated by rescue teams on Friday afternoon after part of the facility lost power.

The blackout shortly after 2 p.m. affected 16 patients at The Residence at Dania Beach who were quarantined with COVID-19, officials said. As they could not be moved safely to another area of ​​the community, they were transferred to hospitals in the area.

These patients were transferred out of caution, not because they were in distress, said Michael Kane, fire chief at the Broward Sheriff’s Office. They are expected to be well and to return to the assisted living facility soon.

Power has since been restored to the facility at 150 Stirling Road, where nearly 100 people are receiving treatment. An administrator said a felled tree in the area caused the outage.

Florida Power & Light workers were on site to restore power.

It is not known why the building’s generator did not maintain power. The administrator would only say that the generators do not restore power to all parts of the building.

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During Hurricane Irma in 2017, a dozen people died at the Hollywood Hills Rehabilitation Center after that facility lost air conditioning. This led the state to pass a law requiring all nursing homes and assisted living facilities to have a back-up generator and emergency power plans.