Copyright 2006 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
All Rights Reserved
By TERRI LANGFORD
The Houston Chronicle (Texas)
As Hurricane Rita churned its way toward Texas last year, officials at Brighton Gardens of Bellaire huddled with their corporate supervisors in Virginia via cyberspace, furiously tapping out their plans in e-mail to evacuate the facility’s elderly residents with an almost military precision.
“Fire and Police dept. notified,” wrote Kellie Gundling, the Houston-area manager for Sunrise Senior Living, Brighton Gardens’ owner, wrote on the afternoon of Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2005. “Emergency ambulance co. notified; extra supplies ordered. Diesal (sic) topped off generator, 90 gallons of water, ordered 150 more.”
Extra staffers flew into Houston from as far away as Colorado to help the Brighton Gardens staff pack and transport its fragile residents to one of three sister facilities in the Dallas area before Rita hit on Sept. 24.
But e-mails and other documents obtained by the Chronicle show that despite all the effort to get residents out of harm’s way, little attention was paid to the most critical element of the evacuation: how to transport the seniors and what to do in the case of an emergency during transit.
The facility’s emergency procedures booklet, also obtained by the Chronicle, omits any specific guidance on how to transport the special population, many of whom were disoriented or ailing.
On Sept. 23, 2005, just before dawn, a bus carrying 38 Brighton Gardens residents, six staffers and as many as 15 oxygen canisters caught fire south of Dallas and exploded. Twenty-three residents were killed.
The accident prompted a National Transportation Safety Board investigation, and resulted in federal charges against the bus owner and a flurry of lawsuits against the bus company, the driver, Brighton Gardens, Sunrise and the bus broker that was hired to arrange the transportation. This spring, the owner of the bus company goes on trial.
Recordings of NTSB interviews with staffers, also obtained by the Chronicle, show none of them knew that the 1998 MCI bus was equipped with a safety feature that allowed the windows to be easily removed in an emergency.
Sunrise spokesman Jamison Gosselin declined to discuss the accident or the documents obtained from ongoing litigation.
As federal prosecutors and investigators proceed against Global Limo in criminal court, lawyers are pursuing civil damages. “This was not a bunch of UT football fans going to a game,” said attorney Richard Mithoff, who represents the families of four dead residents in one of the lawsuits. “It’s a special group of people.”
The evacuation showed “a lack of a plan, a lack of a preparation, a lack of execution,” Mithoff said.
The days before Rita
Four days before Rita hit Texas on Sept. 24, Bellaire fire officials told Brighton Gardens to get their residents out, even as the hurricane began turning toward Beaumont. Sunrise hired Bus Bank, a Chicago bus broker, to find transportation.
On Sept. 21, Bus Bank located two buses belonging to Global Limo of Pharr. Subsequent e-mails raised no questions about the buses’ insurance, registration or safety records from staffers.
After the bus exploded, it was revealed that it was using an illegal license plate. The bus was carrying a one-month insurance policy and its driver, Juan Robles Gutierrez, was carrying a Mexican driver’s license and had 11 safety violations and a ticket for speeding.
Instead, logistics were discussed, and they reflect the chaos that was Houston that week.
“I have been on the phone with Rachel and Bonnie and team updating the list,” Gundling wrote on Sept. 22, about 4 1/2 hours before Global Limo’s buses left Bellaire. “It is mass confusion there this morning ... Families are calling and changing their minds (both ways) ... “
Gundling and her staffers worked to remain in control, even as more than 1 million Texans evacuated, depleting gas pumps and bringing the state’s highways to a halt. Brighton Gardens and Sunrise kept moving forward, circulating staffers’ emergency numbers. New cell phones were obtained and distributed. And in Virginia, Sunrise officials were confident of an orderly evacuation.
“At this point, we have an appropriate evacuation plan and adequate team members in place in anticipation of the storm,” wrote Gregg Colon, Sunrise’s vice president of quality and compliance, about the time the buses left for Dallas.
Among materials obtained by the Chronicle, the “Sunrise Senior Living Emergency Procedures Policy and Forms Manual” has one page devoted to “Resident Evacuation.” Sunrise officials declined to discuss whether there was a more detailed plan.
There was no discussion in e-mail of the special needs Brighton Gardens residents might present to a bus company. Staffers gave NTSB investigators varying accounts of how many oxygen bottles were aboard the bus and whether they were full or empty.
The bus left Bellaire about 2:30 p.m Sept. 22. Later that night, it stopped in Huntsville to replace the oxygen tanks for two women in the rear of the bus. Sheila White, a Brighton Gardens staffer, said, “I had two (tanks) sit in the seat. And then I put all four of them on the floor and I took the blue cooler and wedged it so they wouldn’t move. And then I took one of them and wedge in between the little guy so it wouldn’t move. And I took two of them and I put them by the two ladies that needed the oxygen.”
Shock took its toll on the residents when staffers told them the bus was on fire. But many were too stunned to comprehend the danger. At one point, Marie Ceres, a Brighton Gardens staffer, tried to move Ada Dahl off the bus. “I was pulling her, telling her to `C’mon, let’s go.’ ” Ceres told investigators. “She was just sitting there looking at me.”
So Ceres said she moved on to Gloria Putney, who was moved safely. Dahl died.
White described a surreal scene as residents sat or stood in the aisles motionless, paralyzed by shock or their disabilities.
“You told them to ‘C’mon, y’all, we got to go.’ And these were the sort of people that can walk, but just wouldn’t move,” White said. “So we started getting the ones in the front, you know, trying to make it to where some from the back could come on out.
“But then by the time of that, the smoke had grabbed me by my throat and I pulled out the last one and that’s when it went, boom.”