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Last year, a friend told me a lovely story about two nursing homes in Worthington, Minnesota. The residents sent encouraging cards and notes to a care facility affected by Hurricane Harvey in Texas. You can read the full story in this newspaper article.
I always feel emotional when I read stories about nursing homes affected by hurricanes. You see, back in 2009, we had to evacuate the nursing home where I worked as a nurse.
In our case, it wasn’t a hurricane we feared. It was major flooding from the mighty Red River that runs between North Dakota and Minnesota.
A few of our residents left the nursing home to stay with family members. We transported nearly 50 people to a recently closed facility in a little town about 150 miles away. The remainder of our 136 residents temporarily transferred to other healthcare facilities throughout the state.
Thankfully, the floodwaters never reached our nursing home and everyone was able to return a short time later. However, even though the evacuation went as well as we could have hoped, it was still an extremely stressful experience for residents, families, and staff.
As I read the news story about the Worthington nursing homes, I thought about how much these cards & notes would have meant to our residents and staff. With this in mind, I’m encouraging my readers to consider sending notes to support residents affected by Hurricane Florence.
I didn’t find a lot of information about how the hurricane impacted specific nursing homes. I do know that some facilities were evacuated but residents have now been allowed to return. Others remained at the nursing homes and weathered the storms. Sadly, some facilities sustained damage or can’t be occupied yet due to the effects of the hurricane on the community.
To simplify this project, I’m offering you a list of nursing homes (with their addresses) located in the counties most seriously damaged by Hurricane Florence. I hope you’ll pick a few and send them notes of encouragement as they recover from this harrowing experience.
Here’s the list for North Carolina. (Yes, there’s a lot of them!) I’m still researching information on nursing homes in other states affected by the hurricane. If you know of any facilities to add to the list, please make a note in the comment section.
Thank you for participating in this project. I know you’ll brighten someone’s day as residents, families, and staff continue the healing process.
Did you know you can also support Hurricane Florence victims by donating codes from Coke Products?
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