City of New Orleans officials have been in regular contact with managers of independent living facilities to ensure they are prepared for the effects of Tropical Storm Francine — which is expected to intensify into a hurricane by Wednesday (Sept. 11) — and are considering offering some residents transportation to an emergency shelter, a New Orleans Health Department spokesperson told Verite News.
“The New Orleans Health Department (NOHD) has been actively monitoring the needs of healthcare and independent living facilities and is working with the building managers on reporting,” NOHD spokesperson Isis Casanova said in a statement.
Tropical Storm Francine is forecast to make landfall on the central Louisiana coast on Wednesday afternoon or evening as a Category 1 hurricane. On Tuesday afternoon, the National Weather Service placed the New Orleans metropolitan area under a hurricane watch. Entergy, the region’s electric utility, has advised customers in the affected areas to prepare for power outages from the storm.
Unlike nursing homes, independent living facilities are not regulated by the state and are not required to have generators or emergency relocation plans. But the city strengthened local oversight of the facilities following Hurricane Ida in 2021, when an extended citywide blackout left elderly and disabled residents of the homes in stifling heat for days. Several residents died in the days after the storm.
In advance of Ida’s landfall in August 2021, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said that she had signed contracts with over one hundred buses to potentially transport people out of the city following the storm. But in the immediate aftermath, the city didn’t provide any evacuation transportation.
Four days after the storm, Cantrell finally announced that the city would provide “city assisted transportation to shelters,” as the outage continued in the summer heat, putting medically vulnerable residents at risk. RTA buses transported interested residents to shelters in north Louisiana and neighboring states.
In October 2021, the New Orleans City Council passed an ordinance requiring the facilities to apply for city-issued licenses to operate. Under the ordinance, they also are required to share emergency plans and to work with the city during disasters. More recently, the council voted to impose fines on independent living facilities that fail to keep officials updated during emergencies.
On Tuesday, New Orleans Regional Transit Authority CEO Lona Edwards Hankins told Verite that the agency is prepared to assist with transporting vulnerable residents to area shelters, should the city request it. Hankins said the RTA is planning to operate limited service beginning Wednesday in order to keep buses on reserve for storm-related transport.
Casanova said the Health Department is currently working with building managers at independent living facilities to make sure the conditions are safe in preparation for the storm.
“One building had an elevator undergoing repairs before the storm and had a small number of residents who needed assistance going up and down,” she said. “We are working with the building managers and considering the possibility of transporting these residents to one of the shelters if they wish. This decision would be entirely voluntary.”
If the city opts to offer transportation to any of those residents, they would be taken to the NORD Rosenwald Recreation Center at 1120 S. Broad St., which was scheduled to begin operating as an emergency storm shelter for unhoused and vulnerable residents beginning Tuesday evening.
The New Orleans Health Department encourages people with medical or mobility concerns to enroll in the SMART911 emergency alert program by calling 3-1-1 or going to ready.nola.gov.
Verite News reporter Bobbi-Jeanne Misick contributed to this report.
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