More than a week after Hurricane Beryl hit the Houston region, some senior living operators’ communities are still without power.
When the Category 1 hurricane hit Texas on July 8, Sodalis lost power at seven communities in the Houston area. Now, after days of not having power at its Cypress Woods location near Houston in Kingswood, San Marcos, Texas-based operator Sodalis Senior Living is moving residents out of the building and into the neighboring Sodalis community Copperfield Estates 11 miles away.
Sodalis Senior Living President Traci Taylor-Roberts, said the move follows days of frustrating back-and-forth with regional electric company CenterPoint Energy.
“We have called every single day,” Roberts said. “The health department called on our behalf. The first responders down there called on our behalf. Sunday, they promised the power would be restored. Here we are on Tuesday, and I still don’t have it for Cypress.”
Sodalis is not alone in its struggles getting the power turned on since it went off on July 8. At the time, around 2.3 million people lost power, and the energy provider was noted to be slow in providing updates, along with not having an active outage map. As of July 16, the power company had restored power to 96% of the city.
12 Oaks Senior Living also saw nine communities around the Houston region impacted by the power outages, according to President Greg Puklicz. While most were not out for more than a day, the assisted living and memory care residents at Reunion Court of Kingwood did have to be relocated to other 12 Oaks communities in the area, as power still has yet to be restored.
“I am quite disappointed that CenterPoint and the City of Houston were so unprepared for what was a relatively minor hurricane,” Puklicz told Senior Housing News. “The restoration of power at senior living communities needs to be prioritized going forward.”
Communities in the area belonging to both Sodalis and 12 Oaks did not sustain any physical damage from the hurricane.
Roberts said she thought senior housing communities would be among the top priorities for power restoration, along with hospitals. But that wasn’t the case.
“It’s frustrating because the community we have right now doesn’t have power, but I can look a block away and you’ve got shops and restaurants that do have power back,” she said. “I don’t know what the deal is with the power grid here in Texas, but it’s problematic.”
Sodalis isn’t the only senior housing operator struggling with the lack of power. The Texas Tribune reports operators including Ella Springs Senior Living, an 80-unit assisted living and memory care community, have had their fair share of struggles. After losing power in the hurricane, the community was forced to use generators to keep residents cool before the power was restored multiple days later on July 11.
Roberts said Sodalis had a similar emergency plan in place with generators that provided power to common areas to keep residents, staff and family members cool. Unlike states such as Florida, which requires that senior housing operators have generators and fuel to maintain power for up to 96 hours, Texas does not mandate that senior housing and care operators maintain generators in case the power goes out.
But Taylor-Roberts was experienced in Florida generator regulations, which led her to using smaller generators to keep the common areas cool, though resident rooms could not be powered.
Roberts said the company’s use of generators kept refrigerators powered, preventing food in the community’s kitchen from going to waste. Still, workers at the Cypress Woods community are having to clean out refrigerators in resident rooms, which were not powered.
All of this has an added cost for Sodalis. Roberts said that the company’s effort to rent a bus and move the 40 residents out of the Cypress Woods community likely will cost between $50,000 and $100,000 when all is said and done.
Overtime pay and bonuses for staff help during the hurricane are also an added operational cost that Sodalis must pay, along with fuel for the generators.
“Many times we let family members also stay in communities because we will have some power. We’ve got a couple of people that lost everything due to flooding this time,” Roberts said. “We’re giving bonuses to all of our team members who have been staying here and giving great care to our residents and making sure they’re alright.”
Though no Sodalis communities suffered any physical damage in the hurricane, Roberts said she worries that property insurance will continue to rise after each storm that passes through.
“That definitely could impact us in the future,” she said.
For now, she said she would like more answers from CenterPoint Energy and the Texas state government on what comes next.
“I think they need to sit down with the people that are the most fragile that we take care of and really have a conversation with us about strategy and the why behind it,” Roberts said. “This is really about taking care of Texas citizens. It’s about keeping people safe.”