Lafon Nursing Home: "Officials Eventually Recovered 22 Corpses"

From Friday's Washington Post:

At Nursing Home, Katrina Dealt Only the First Blow
For Days, Nuns Labored in Fatal Heat to Get Help for Patients

The fatal mistake:

But at Lafon, the nursing home run by the order, more than 100 other elderly patients stayed where they were. Sister Augustine McDaniel, the nursing home's administrator, had weathered other hurricanes in her 68 years and decided that she -- and the patients in her care -- would tough this one out, too.

Faced with moving her fragile patients on jammed roadways, or keeping them at Lafon, a sturdy, low brick building that had survived other hurricanes, McDaniel decided her staff and patients would be better off staying. If things got rough, she would move everyone to the second floor.

The result:

Originally told 14 had died, officials eventually recovered 22 corpses.

Read the entire sad story. There are more tragic nursing home stories to come.

Previous posts:

What Happened at the Lafon Nursing Home?

Lafon Nursing Home Update

There Are A Lot More Nursing Homes In New Orleans: Here's the Story of One.

What Happened at the Lafon Nursing Home?

From the San Antonio News Express:

Ken Rodriguez: New Orleans nursing home mystery: How did 14 residents die?

Dorothy and other residents were never evacuated from the Lafon Nursing Home of the Holy Family.

After the hurricane, some Lafon residents were bused to a nursing home in Houma, La. Others were airlifted to New Orleans International Airport and sent to hospitals.

Dorothy stayed behind. An unknown number of residents stayed, too. As rescue workers gathered the remains of at least 14 Lafon residents, the nursing home staff referred calls to a lawyer.

Relatives of the deceased want answers. One of Dorothy's daughters, Rosalind Chavis of San Antonio, fears the truth may be hard to find.

"I am suspicious," says Rosalind, 46. "They had time to evacuate my mom."

Louisiana authorities share Rosalind's concern. The state's attorney general has opened an investigation into Lafon.

Previous posts:

Lafon Nursing Home Update

There Are A Lot More Nursing Homes In New Orleans: Here's the Story of One.

Lafon Nursing Home Update

The Washington Post reports that the state is indeed investigating the many deaths at the LaFon Nursing Home:

As City Dries, Residents Plan Return

Louisiana state authorities said Wednesday that they are investigating the Lafon Nursing Home of the Holy Family in New Orleans, where a number of deaths have been reported. They may investigate as many as 18 nursing homes, authorities said.

Original Lafon Nursing Home post

There Are A Lot More Nursing Homes In New Orleans: Here's the Story of One.

I've tracked the story of the Lafon Nursing Home of the Holy Family backwards after finding this story in the Winston-Salem Journal. There are dozens of nursing homes in New Orleans, and there will be more bodies found. Will the MSM cover all of them, or only the ones with particularly high body counts?

Many bodies of elderly discovered at hospital
Causes of more than 40 deaths are undetermined

The discovery at Memorial Medical Center was not the first where workers have recovered a group of bodies from a health-care facility.

Saturday, a recovery team found eight bodies inside Bethany Home, an assisted-living center near City Park. Yesterday, mortuary workers removed human remains from Lafon Nursing Home of the Holy Family, but authorities would not disclose the exact number of victims.

One side of the entrance to Lafon was spray-painted with the date "9-2" and the words "59 live" and "16 dead," while the other side was spray-painted with the date "9-9" and the notation "14 dead."

In the nursing home, the pale-brown water mark on the first floor was about 21/2 feet up the wall. On the second floor, spray-paint markings indicated where some bodies had been found: one under a hallway bulletin board, one in a community room, two beside an elevator.

Individual rooms were filled with personal belongings - pictures of friends, personal cards, flowers. In one room was a neatly folded copy of The Times-Picayune with the headline, "Katrina Takes Aim."

This article in yesterday's Washington Post contains a photograph captioned Beds are strewn in the entryway of the Lafon Nursing Home of the Holy Family in New Orleans on Monday, Sept. 12, 2005. Earlier in the day, officials had removed an unspecified number of bodies from the facility, two weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) (Rick Bowmer - AP)

This article by AP yesterday contains another photograph by the same photographer, captioned: Photo caption: Two beds are seen in a residential room at the Lafon Nursing Home of the Holy Family in New Orleans on Monday, Sept. 12, 2005. Earlier in the day officials had removed an unspecified number of bodies from the facility, two weeks after Hurricane Katrina had struck. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Sept. 6th, safekatrina.com:

Robbin Navarre Richards on Sep 6 - 10:41pm
I'm in search of our Aunt, Helena Townsend. She was in the Lafon Nursing Home of Holy Family - 6900 Chef Menteur Hwy. New Orleans before the storm. We think she maybe in a shelter somewhere in Baton Rouge. I'm also looking for other relatives, Janice, Lester, Randy & Trina Meadoux. If you have any Info. please contact me at (714) 974-0907 or 1 800 828-6699 ext. 1146


Sept. 4, 2005 Miami Herald: S. Florida opens arms to evacuees

Friday night, the Rouzan family learned that a cousin, Lorraine Duvernay, 78, had died in the Lafon Nursing Home of the Holy Family in New Orleans.

She is in the nursing home's chapel in a body bag.

''And there is nothing you can do,'' Wanda Rouzan said, crying.

Sept. 3rd, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: First Person: Sister Sylvia, where are you?
A gentle, caring soul in New Orleans went missing in action

One of those people is Sister Sylvia Thibodeaux, head of the Sisters of the Holy Family in New Orleans, an order of African-American Catholic sisters. Sister Sylvia welcomed me and took me on a tour of the convent with its peeling paint, dormitory bathrooms and a chapel that was woefully inadequate for sisters who were now using walkers and wheelchairs.

She had immense challenges daily to maintain a deteriorating complex of buildings that included the huge convent where more than 50 sisters live, a sprawling 600-student girls' academy nearby, the 130-bed Lafon Nursing Home for elderly lay and religious women in need of skilled care; and, next door to the nursing home, the multistoried Delille Independent Living for the Elderly Poor apartment complex. The Holy Family sisters are frail and aging but as many members as could walk continued to work for little to no pay at educating elementary and high school students and caring for the handicapped, frail and elderly.

Sept. 2nd San Antonio News-Express: Ken Rodriguez: Help came for woman's grandmother, but was it too late?

On the east side of New Orleans, amid rising waters and sinking hope, more than 100 residents of Lafon Nursing Home were trapped on the second floor.

Without food and drinking water, they grew fatigued and weak. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, some perished, waiting to be rescued.
About 500 miles away in San Antonio, assistant city manager Jelynne Burley held her breath.

The grandmother who raised her, 100-year-old Rosalie Daste, is a Lafon Nursing Home resident.

Just before 5 p.m. Thursday, Burley learned that rescuers had arrived and evacuated 100 residents and caretakers. Was her grandmother among the living?

"I don't know," she said. "All I know is that some people didn't make it."....

Thursday afternoon, [Burley's] staff assistant retrieved the following message from nola.com:

"My aunt is trapped at the Lafon Nursing Home of the Holy Family on 6900 Chef Menteur Highway. ... The people that own the nursing home have left and gone to Covington, La. They made no arrangements to get them out. The water is still rising and they have no idea if anyone is coming for them. Please help us to save my aunt and the residents."

Last updated Sept. 12th: AAHSA has collected relocation information for AAHSA members and other long-term care facilities that had to evacuate because of Hurricane Katrina.

Lafon Nursing Home of the Holy Family, New Orleans, La.
Relocated to Château Terrebonne Health Care Center,
Houma, La.
(985) 872-4553

Last updated Sept. 12th: From the Sisters of the Holy Family Website:

While we are not affiliated with the LaFon Nursing Home in New Orleans, LA, nor the Sisters of the Holy Family of New Orleans, we have obtained information from The Sisters of the Holy Family, SSF. They are now in Shreveport, LA. You may contact Sister Silvia Thibodeaux at 318-868-3880.

For information about the residents of LaFon Nursing Home, please contact Sister Augustine Mc Daniels, SSF at 409-842-2940.

August 31st, nowpublic.com:

My name is James Williams from Chicago and I'm trying to find any information on the Lafon nursing home of the Holy Family

Hello my name is James Williams, I am from Chicago illinois and I am looking for any information on the Lafon Nursing Home of the Holy Family. I have a grandmother and an Aunt that was there with my grandmother that we have had no contact at all my grandmother has a prostetic leg if that will help. (Grandmother Marie Jones & Aunt Jean-Marie Belonga

There are other families as well looking for the same nursing home because of loved ones, two Nuns to be exact. please your immediate response would be greatly appreciated.

Sept. 1st, thinknola.com:

Lafon Nursing Facility

Lafon Latest - by geselm - 9/1/05 10:19 ET (http://www.nola.com/forums/townhall/index.ssf?searchart?artid=15199)

As of 9/1 10am EST according to LA Nursing Home Assoc, Lafon Nursing Facility of the Holy Family HAD NOT been evacuated. She said they were working on that now and to call back in 12 - 24 hours.

For Clarification there is no Mercy Hills retreat that I can find in Covington or any other place. Mary Hill Renewal Center at the 318 number DOES NOT have Lafon residents. They are not at Xavier Prep.

I am looking for my grandmother Rebecca Landix. I have at least 10 names that I will ask about in addition to my grandmother. Please contact me atgeselm@hotmail.com if you have any information.

From karmus.com:

Larry

I am looking for my mother Annie M. Harrison, Age 90, Airlifted from Lafon Sisters of the Holy Family Nursing Home (6900 Chef menteur Hwy,New Orleans LA). Contact me at ljharrison@anteon.com; (321) 436-7206.

From bulletinblog: Hurricane Katrina

Obando Perez, Emelina

Lives at: Lafon Nursing Home, Sisters of the Holy Family, 6900 Chef Menteur Highway,
New Orleans, LA 70126.

Last told she was airlifted by Natl Guard to NO Intl Airport but there is no list & they say they are evacuating ppl out on buses, helicopters and planes. Don't know where she is. She only speaks SPANISH!

Please call Ivonne at 904-652-7241

August 31st, Catholic News Service:

Louisianans face long recovery from Katrina, New Orleans flooding

She said the retreat center in the diocese has taken in 36 Holy Family Sisters who had to evacuate their motherhouse in New Orleans, and the local Catholic high school had become a temporary shelter for the evacuated residents of a nursing home near Houma, about 60 miles southwest of New Orleans.