Louisiana investigating deaths of Ida nursing home evacuees

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The owner of seven Louisiana nursing homes that were evacuated to a warehouse where four residents died after Hurricane Ida amid conditions deemed squalid faced criticism after a prior evacuation-related death two decades ago. He faces new calls for his nursing home licenses to be revoked.

State health officials have launched an investigation into the deaths at a warehouse facility in Tangipahoa Parish where 843 residents from seven nursing facilities operated by Bob Dean were sent before Ida roared ashore in southeast Louisiana. Attorney General Jeff Landry said Friday that his office has started its own review of the evacuation decisions.

AARP Louisiana pushed for the nursing homes involved to lose their licenses, calling the deaths of the residents “the result of a complete failure of oversight, enforcement and planning.”

“It’s a privilege to hold a nursing home license. It’s time to take it away from the facilities involved in this tragedy," Denise Bottcher, Louisiana state director for AARP, said in a statement.

The hundreds of nursing home evacuees who survived were spread out Friday at shelters and hospitals across the state after the Louisiana Department of Health determined the Waterbury Companies Inc. warehouse wasn't safe for the evacuees after the storm.

Department spokesperson Aly Neel said water entered the building and generators failed at least temporarily, and the state received reports of people left on mattresses on the floor, without food or clean clothes and with strong odors of feces in the building. But when a team of state health inspectors arrived Tuesday to investigate the warehouse, the nursing homes’ owner demanded they leave immediately, Neel said.

Despite the resistance, the state arrived with buses and ambulances...