The Many Police Department and Many Healthcare North made headlines in TIME Magazine recently after helping with the evacuation and returning of 80 residents of Marrero Healthcare Center, who were in the path of Hurricane Ida, the Category 4 storm that ravaged large swaths of Louisiana two weeks ago.
Administrators at the LaForche Parish facility took two days to pack their residents for an almost fivehour trip inland to Many Healthcare north.
“It’s so hard on the elderly folks, many of them, just to travel for an hour or two in a car,” said Elizabeth Dowden, nursing home director for Many Healthcare. “But to travel on a stretcher for six hours? That’s a strong generation. Very little complaints, and they did well.”
The trip took much longer, as thousands of others were evacuating from the storm path. Once the group made it to Many, the local police department and Sabine Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies were on hand to help the new, temporary residents.