All 78 Residents Of Apple Rehab Being Evacuated And Transferred To Other Facilities

Apple Rehab sits on a beautiful patch of property right beside the picturesque East River on the Boston Post Road in Guilford on the border of Madison. This is a perfect spot until a hurricane, like Hurricane Irene, threatens to make an appearance.

“Ten percent ... is in the flood plain,” said Apple Executive Vice President of Operations Brian Bedard.  “We’ve got everything from the waters are already higher than we like and we’ve got high tide coming in Sunday night the same time the storm’s ready to hit so it’s the factors working in concert together that puts the building at some level of risk. "

“We are going to be sending all of the residents to other Apple facilities,” he said.

“The storm is supposed to hit on Sunday evening, it’s going to rain throughout the day obviously with the bands that we are seeing and then depending on the level of the damage the facility may or may not incur we’d be able to put residents back as soon as Monday,” Bedard added.

We visited the facility in the hours before the residents began their evacuation, it was a beehive of activity.  Registered nurses were collecting and securing medications, aides were packing bags for each individual resident, medical records were being assembled and Facility Administrator Janet Woxland was meeting with Apple Rehab corporate nurses to find appropriate facilities to transfer their residents.

Meanwhile, the residents, many unaware of what was going on behind the scenes, were going about their business as usual.  My mother-in-law, Helen Kyrcz, visited with her two granddaughters, Ana and Sophia, and decided she needed her nails polished.  Sophia obliged, painting her nails with clear nail polish.

Transfers began Friday and will continue in an orderly fashion until all 78 residents are safe in other Apple facilities, says Bedard.  “I’m going to start that process (transfers) as early as today,” said Bedard. “If I can get some residents out in the daylight today and organize this it does two things, it makes it more orderly and for the receiving facilities it’s a normal admission,” he added. 

“We’ve made a decision early enough so that between now and the onset of the storm we feel we can just do it in a very organized fashion and minimize the disruption to the residents,” said Bedard.

How was the ultimate decision made to undertake this massive project of getting all residents transferred to other Apple facilities?  According to Bedard it was a collaborative effort between his office and the local fire marshal. 

“When you have a local official (fire marshal) that uses words like ‘I strongly recommend’ and when I look at the building and see there’s water right next to the facility and coming from the Madison side it’s likely to be difficult for emergency vehicles to get there,” said Bedard.  “All of us have the residents’ best interest in mind and we don’t know if it’s going to be that bad but we can’t eliminate risk, we’re just trying to minimize it.”

Madison town officials said they were not aware of any evacuations of health care facilities in town, adding that there are no facilities that are in a flood plain.