More than 100 residents were forced to evacuate a local nursing home after an electrical issue disrupted the facility. See the emergency response and what we know about what happened.
Electrical issues led to more than 130 residents being evacuated
from a nursing home in Lexington.
Boston 25's Alyssa Azara spoke with fire officials
on the work to relocate those residents.
When you're standing here watching it, it looks kind of chaotic,
but it's actually really a synchronized process.
We have ambulances staged down the street on a neighboring street,
and then we're bringing them in as we have the ability.
Up to 135 residents evacuated
from the Care One facility in Lexington Saturday night.
The nursing home and rehabilitation center is now a ghost town
after a major power failure led to a massive emergency response.
It's not just the power going out.
It's a repeating problem and the risk.
We've already had one person hurt.
Fire Chief Derek Sensabaugh says
a maintenance worker was injured in the process
but is expected to be okay.
most residents were transported
to nearby nursing homes or other Care One
facilities in Massachusetts
while a few were taken to the hospital out of
caution we had a couple that went
to the hospital just based on that they were
probably more of the acute you know nature
of a patient a program called
MassMAP providing mutual aid
to nursing homes helped evacuate residents to
Ultimately Sensabaugh says
the building had to be de-energized leaving
it with no power whatsoever
because with electrical failure comes other problems
Everything else is tied into it.
The sewer system is tied into the electricity as well.
He says the facility had been experiencing electrical issues
on and off prior to Saturday,
with Eversource and electricians working to fix it.
They'll have to come in and test everything over the next day or two
and try to isolate where the problem
is and make corrections before we can allow everybody to come back.
It's still unclear exactly
when residents will be allowed back into the building.
We have reached out to Care One.
On scene in Lexington,
Alyssa Azara for your local station, Boston 25 News.
