NEW ORLEANS — Five seniors were found dead in senior living facilities across New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida. They were found as the City of New Orleans evacuated 10 facilities in a post-storm sweep.
New Orleans City Councilman Jay Banks told WWLTV he was present when the second body was found.
"I was at Flint-Goodridge Saturday afternoon," Banks said. "I went immediately and was told one body was found, and literally, while I was there, they found the second body."
Banks said the circumstances reveal an unbelievable and unfortunate gap in regulations that must be addressed as soon as possible, collaborating with State Senator Karen Carter Peterson and State Representatives Candace Newell and Matthew Willard.
The senior living facilities are not nursing homes, Banks said. There is no regulation for senior housing in Louisiana, Banks said.
City council members will speak with the city attorney and the city council's legal advisor to work on city regulations to prevent something like this from ever happening again.
"It appears that management just left, leaving those people there on their own with no lights, no communications, and no air conditioning," Banks said. "It's immoral. I can't tell you if it's criminal, but I can tell you it's definitely immoral."
The housing complexes are not nursing homes. They are owned by private companies that get some of their fund from the federal government.
"They're run by private companies, and those private companies apparently just walked away," Banks said. "That's the way it looks."
More information will be available after an investigation.
"I don't want to cast a final judgment... . But so far, what I was given yesterday, it doesn't look good," Banks said. "Many of the residents told me that they haven't seen anyone from management since before the storm hit."
There was no storm response or evacuation plan for the senior living facilities Banks visited Saturday, he said.
"The stories were all consistent," he said. "They were just left. There was no one in charge, no one to answer questions, no one to render help. The management of the facilities just apparently left."