Evacuation of Elim Care Center

I agree with our text book saying, "You don't have to be involved in a dangerous business to encounter a crisis". A nursing home is not a dangerous business, but is there to help care for older residents of a community. Yet on April 26, 2009 133 residents had to be evacuated due to the rising water in the Red River. Because of good communication with the state officials Elim was prepared to deal with the evacuation adequately. The faculty and staff had a crisis plan and followed it to minimize chaos and confusion. The nursing home had to make sure that families were called and that all the residents had a safe destination along with their medicines, medical records, and a safe way to get there. The Emergency Operation Center along with the Long Term Care Association worked together to get the names of the residents and the types of transportation they needed compiled. They helped find open spots in the state to house the residents that were to be evacuated. Social Services at Elim contacted the families regarding the evacuation. Some loved ones chose to take them home, while others had no choice, but to send them to other facilities. Each resident was issued a triage tag with an identification number. Belongings, medicines, and medical records were packed in a pillow case labeled with each resident’s name. The triage tags and personal belongings bags were separated depending on where the resident was going. Staff volunteered to accompany the residents on their travel to other facilities. This shows how well a crisis situation can be handled. Coordinating for 133 residents takes a lot of time and work by all the faculty and staff to make sure all residents were safe and had their belongings. They used the help of government agencies such as Social Services to help with the crisis in contacting the families. If Elim did not have a crisis plan things could have been much worse and very difficult without the communication of all the agencies and faculty and staff.