Do you wanna build a snowman or what do you do for families in a blizzard

[CapeCodMermaid, RN]

I live in Massachusetts. It snows here....a lot...yesterday we had mountains of snow with high winds. Needless to say, thousands without power...no lights ... no heat.

A few family members requested to stay over night since they had no heat...and it is COLD here.

Do all y'all let family members stay? If so where? Empty patient rooms? The lobby?

I'm curious what other people do.

[sallyrnrrt, ADN, RN]

Bless you, down south on the gulf coast of Texas, and even 60-70miles from coast we have hurricanes..... Usually we ahead of time evac. ( horrid for residents and staff) to a sister facility, sometimes in order to get staff to go with the residents to a safer sister facility, we have to accommodate their families....during Ike, a facility i consulted with.... Was on shelter in place an night, and became mandatory evac. Within 6 hrs......I was exhausted as we had evac. Our two "coastal " LTCs......as usual it was a mess, WAlkie talkie go out on tour buses, wc bound, via wc vans, and critical bed fast go last on EMS ambulances.......until a certain time when FEMA, won't allow ambulance to come to your facility......we were stranded, to shelter in place, my self, regional nurse consultant, and The DON.....old building.....my husband kept the generator full of oil, etc, the other two RN were not comfortable with Trach. The only emergency generator outlets were in the hallway s we had to move residents to hallways ..lfortunatly im also RRT, so Trach patient was taken care of....the two housekeepers , aided in hygiene and adls.... The generator did not power AC, and we have hurricane activity usually in 100 degree temps...

So with disasters, doing what ever, to keep residents safe, some of those family members might come in handy, my husband ( an engineer). Actually spoon fed some residents......

[sallyrnrrt, ADN, RN]

Oh by the way we needed to call state , as it is requirement when inside temp gets higher than 78 degrees and outside temp is 95 degrees or higher....... We kept them hydrated and used high velocity flor fans......state. Did not cite us, they just sorta said bless you....

[CapeCodMermaid, RN]

Even in an emergency I think the Massachusetts DPH would cite us for letting ‘untrained' people do personal care and feed.

[Neats, BSN]

I once was at a facility as LNHA when at 0300 hrs in the AM I received a call from the fire department (small town) the facility overhead fire sprinkler were going off in the front common areas (it was winter and 10 below). My husband and twin boys drove me into work, we did not have to evacuate because it was part of the old area. I did go room to room while my family cleaned up the mess. It smelled real bad...some patient who were A&O x3 I would explain what happened, they went back to sleep. I made sure each resident was observed. State came in 2 days later, we did not get a citation but a huge Thank you and they were surprised I went room to room-the residents told them.