San Simeon nursing home residents evacuated after smoke scare sparks fear of unsafe conditions
A smoke-filled Greenport nursing home was evacuated in the wee hours Monday as a nor’easter thrashed the North Fork — and the entire facility was cleared out later in the day after it was ruled unsafe, officials said.
Southold police received a 911 call around 4:30 a.m. reporting smoke at San Simeon by the Sound Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation on County Road 48.
Following an inspection by Suffolk County fire marshals, officials reportedly found that San Simeon’s fire suppression system and fire alarms were not working.
An “evacuation bus” waits to transport residents of the 120-bed facility. (Credit: Jim Willse)
“They decided that it wasn’t safe to keep the residents there until all of this is fixed,” Southold Town Police Chief Steven Grattan told Newsday.
The state Health Department ordered the relocation of all patients to alternate care facilities, according to Southold Police.
Officials at San Simeon declined to comment.
At around 6 p.m., patients at the 120-bed nursing home were seen being wheeled to two waiting buses as well as four ambulances as skies finally began to clear after two days of heavy rain and winds that gusted up to 60 mph.
The residents were being moved to a “variety of locations,” Lt. Robert Hasse of the Southold Police told the Suffolk Times.
Mark Dunleavy, district chief investigator for the state Health Department, said evacuations are expected to continue through the night.
Deanna Horton of Greenport was visiting San Simeon as her mother-in-law and her roommate waited to board a bus. Horton told The Suffolk Times that she didn’t know where they were transporting her elderly mother-in-law.
Early this morning, fire departments from Greenport, Southold and Mattituck responded to the initial 911 call, along with ambulances from more than a dozen agencies.
The smoke was traced to a malfunctioning air handler in the facility’s HVAC system that serves the west wing, police said.
Seven residents requiring oxygen were transported to hospitals — four to Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Hospital in Greenport and three to Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead, police said.
Another nine residents were temporarily relocated to nearby Peconic Landing.
Families seeking information about their loved ones can call San Simeon at (631) 477-2110.
With Suffolk Times staff
