GALVESTON — In another sign of Hurricane Ike’s toll, the city’s most visible retirement community has laid off 100 employees at its geriatric nursing unit as it awaits insurance money to repair roof damage on a building housing its frailest clients.
The indefinite closure of Edgewater Retirement Community’s Turner Geriatric Center also leaves in question the future of care for the island’s elderly. The only other major provider of skilled nursing facilities also was knocked out by the hurricane, which struck Sept. 13.
Most of the 80 or so residents at Edgewater Retirement Community’s mid-rise at 2228 Seawall Blvd. have returned to their apartments.
But about 100 requiring 24-hour care who lived in the Turner Geriatric Center have been at other Texas nursing homes since the storm. They were taken to Byran a day before the hurricane struck. Many are from Galveston and would like to return to Edgewater, which traces its roots back to 1962. But when or if they’ll be able to is uncertain, said Ed Bell, executive director.
“For so many of them, this is home,” Bell said.
Like many businesses in the county, Edgewater still is awaiting assessments and payment from the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association. The buildings did not sustain storm surge damage. But insurance isn’t its only issue, Bell said. Edgewater saw its work force scattered by the storm, which also is causing uncertainty about its future. To top it off, the Turner Geriatric Center relied heavily on the University of Texas Medical Branch for referrals.
But Hurricane Ike inflicted about $710 million in expenses at the medical branch, where 750,000 square feet of buildings, including the first floor of the 550-bed hospital, were flooded. Medical branch officials are awaiting word about state and federal help as thousands of employees wonder how long they’ll have jobs.
Just before the hurricane, Edgewater had spent about $2.5 million remodeling, modernizing and upgrading safety features at the nursing unit. State surveyors were scheduled to inspect the building Sept. 15. Most of those renovations weren’t damaged in the storm, Bell said.
Island resident Celeste Mileski, a nurse for five years in the Alzheimer’s unit at Edgewater, enjoyed working and living on the island, she said. She had planned to retire in Galveston. But Mileski, 63, was among almost 100 employees who have lost their jobs. Mileski, whose island house was spared, has taken a job at a nursing home in Spring Branch, northwest of Houston, and will have to move nearer to it, she said.
“This is so stressful,” she said. “All of a sudden, my job’s not here.”
The other skilled nursing facility is Gulf Health Care Center, 3702 Cove View Blvd. When it plans to reopen is unclear. No one was answering the phones there Friday.
Beyond waiting to collect insurance, the Turner Geriatric also has to contend with an island and a work force severely altered by the storm. Many employees whose houses or apartments were destroyed have moved, Bell said.
“We don’t know where our labor force would come from,” he said. “We don’t know what the island’s going to be like.”
On Friday, Edgewater, owned by Methodist Retirement Communities, had what Bell said were promising talks with windstorm insurance representatives.
“Our goal is to reopen; our heads match our hearts on this, and we want to get it done,” Bell said. “We’re at the mercy of circumstances.”
