Golden Years Retirement home being evacuated by airboat: Harvey flood updates
Published 4:04 pm Wednesday, August 30, 2017
- Tracy Thibodeaux stands on West Port Arthur Road in Beaumont, Texas, and looks for her mother and father who were stranded in their flooded home in the aftermath of Harvey on Wednesday Aug. 30, 2017. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
By The Associated Press
Residents of a retirement home in Orange, Texas are being evacuated by airboat from the flooded facility about 30 miles east of Beaumont.
Agents from the Florida Wildlife Commission and two trucks from the Louisiana Army National Guard are participating in the evacuation of the Golden Years Retirement home.
Water in the parking lot was thigh deep about 3 p.m. Wednesday as guardsmen entered the building and carried residents from the second floor where they had been sheltering in a dry area of the small facility.
Wildlife agents then floated the residents, one-by-one in a Wildlife Commission airboat to the truck. About six residents had been rescued as of midafternoon and it was unclear how many more were sheltering on the second floor.
Texas Health and Human Services records show Golden Years has a licensed capacity of 16. Department spokeswoman Carrie Williams said more than 2,800 residents of about 120 long-term care facilities in areas affected by Harvey had been evacuated by Tuesday. That number was expected to grow.
