Forty Seniors Evacuated from Oak Woods Due to Power Outage

An evacuation of about 40 seniors from the  began at 3 p.m. today after the building had been without power since 1 a.m. Sunday during Hurricane Irene.

"They've now been without power for three days and we can't get an estimate from PSE&G about when it will be restored," said South Brunswick Police spokesman Sgt. Jim Ryan. "The fire marshall has ruled the residence uninhabitable. They have no refrigeration for the medications and food.

"We have three EMS units and police and fire officials are working on relocating the residents."

On Monday, Public Affairs Coordinator Ron Schmalz said the seniors were sheltering in place and didn't want to leave the residence.  Staff is on site to check on them constantly, he said.

"We've been here Sunday since 1 a.m. without power," said Administrative Director Karen Scalera. "The residents that are still here refused assistance to go to a shelter, so we have about 40 residents in the building. The fire marshall was concerned about the alarm system not working and felt it would be safer to evacuate."

A dozen of the seniors will be moved to the sister facility of Oak Woods, Charleston Place, while the rest will be staying with family.

"We had food going bad in the apartments and that was a problem so we helped them to clean out the food," Scalera said. "We have a small generator in the facility to keep our refrigerator and freezer working, so they all had fresh food brought to them and hot coffee throughout this. We were definitely taking care of those who chose to stay and keeping medications that need to be refrigerated in our refrigerator. 

Scalera said the seniors were well taken care of throughout the storm.

"This put a tremendous strain on our staff, so we had to make sure we had extra staff on hand 24 hours a day," she said. "We were doing fire watch and checking on residents at all times, and we offered them all the opportunity to leave for a shelter at all times."

Scalera said the facility will be attempting to get a large generator like the one at Charleston Place in the future.

"We realize the tremendous need for a generator in this type of building," she said. "This facility was built with a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and we will contact them to see if we can use some of our reserve funds to put a generator in this building to make sure this never happens again."