LEFT TO DIE

Staffers Abandoned Nursing Home’s Elderly, Disabled During Wildfires: Report

Investigation finds care facilities’ employees fled deadly Santa Rosa inferno and left nearly 100 residents behind.

Nearly 100 residents of a Northern California assisted-living facility company were abandoned by staffers during last fall’s deadly Santa Rosa wildfires—and would have died if family members and emergency personnel didn’t arrive to rescue them, according to a complaint filed by the California Department of Social Services. State regulators on Thursday moved to revoke the licenses of two facilities operated by Oakmont Senior Living, after finding that employees abandoned dozens of elderly and disabled residents during a frantic evacuation amid the deadly Tubbs Fire in October 2017. Investigators said employees did not know where flashlights, batteries or keys to the facility’s vehicles were, and two of them were incapable of moving or assisting residents because they could not lift more than 10 pounds or use both hands. In all, 22 people died in the fast-spreading late-night inferno that destroyed more than 5,500 structures across Northern California.