SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio is helping out those that may be impacted by Hurricane Laura.
San Pedro Manor, a nursing home facility near San Antonio College, received 57 evacuees from a sister nursing home in Galveston early Tuesday morning.
The facility located on Ashby and San Pedro Ave, will be a full house. The staff said San Pedro Manor can accommodate 125 residents— and with the evacuees there will now be a total of 123 residents. The staff from the Galveston residence will be helping the facility.
An administrator with San Pedro Manor, Andy Dalbergo, said that this was part an evacuation order from the city of Galveston. The order didn’t make it mandatory for Galveston residents to evacuate, but did make it mandatory for nursing home residents to be evacuated out of caution as Hurricane Laura neared the coastline.
There were 66 residents at the facility before the evacuees arrived. Dalbergo said they had to bring in an additional 50 beds Monday after they were notified by the sister facility around noon that the evacuation order had been made.
Two buses arrived around 2:30 a.m. Tuesday at the facility. The San Antonio Fire Department was called out to help move the immobile patients inside the building -- taking close to two hours to get everyone safely and comfortably inside after a couple hours on the road. A third EMS bus arrived just before 7 a.m. with ten more residents who had to be transported on stretchers.
“I would say it took a little over an hour and a half to get everybody unloaded and that’s not including the additional ten in the third bus,” Dalbergo said. “If we hadn’t had the San Antonio Fire Department here helping us it probably would’ve taken us three to four hours.”
Dalbergo said the transfer is a delicate process— with all of the evacuees being immobile as well as having to deal with this during the pandemic. He said all residents at San Pedro Manor and the evacuees have been tested for COVID-19 and there were no positive cases.
“We accommodate them the best we can,” Dalbergo said. “Just wanted to make sure that they got a bed to lay down. I’m sure they are tired. Many of them are thirsty, we have food ready for them.”