Published: September 19, 2008 01:18 am      

Cartmell Home takes in Ike evacuees

PALESTINE — Diane Mae Polk never expected to celebrate her 83rd birthday with a cake and balloons among strangers six hours away from her Baytown home.

With St. James Place Nursing Home sitting in the path of Hurricane Ike, Polk and 23 other residents joined the flood of evacuees heading north for shelter.

Thanks to an agreement in place for the past three years between St. James and Cartmell Home for Aged director Tim Kozik, the 24 residents weathered the storm in the Palestine nursing home’s activity room. Cartmell staff converted the room into temporary living quarters on Sept. 11 after receiving word that it was needed for the two dozen critically ill St. James residents.

“God sure took care of us,” Polk said from her bed early Tuesday afternoon at Cartmell Home.

St. James residents were surprised to have to leave home, she said. Staff members there gathered a change of clothing, medications, glasses and medical information into backpacks for each resident and prepared them to make their way by ambulance through the crowd leaving the Houston area Sept. 11.

“It was such a shock, I didn’t have time to think,” Polk said. “I didn’t ever think we’d have to move.”

Once it became clear that Ike was headed toward the Galveston-Houston area and not Brownsville, St. James staff quickly began readying residents to leave while Cartmell staff began preparing to take them in with an “all hands on deck” effort, Kozik said.

Manual beds which were replaced during a recent electric bed campaign were pulled from storage, cleaned and set up in the activity room and over-bed tables loaned by several Cartmell residents were set up. Staff prepared some beds for special medical needs, such as oxygen machines, so that evacuees could come straight into a comfortable environment.

In addition, a room was set aside for the incoming nursing staff to have a place to stay.

Seven nurses accompanied the residents on their six hour journey northward by ambulance from Baytown to Palestine, then remained with the patients during their stay at Cartmell Home, helping a rotation of 50 local nurses and staff with their care. Other St. James residents were sent to facilities in San Antonio and Navasota.

Seeing the line of 17 ambulances with lights flashing approaching Cartmell Home from Loop 256, staff began to realize just how big the relief efforts were with Ike, Kozik said.

“What really hit home, I was out there trying to help direct the unloading, the first ambulance pulled up and I asked the driver where he was from and he said Maine,” Kozik said. “I was like, wow, this thing is big. The next driver was from Maryland. It just went on and on.”

As each ambulance unloaded those inside, patients’ needs were assessed and they were directed to an appropriate part of the large room. The patients’ resiliency after the long ambulance ride to unfamiliar surroundings touched the Cartmell staff, Kozik said Tuesday.

“When you think about those ambulances, it’s a six hour ride on a stretcher,” he said. “The fear of the unknown for the seven staff members — what are we going to have when we get to it? The fear of not knowing what the facility is going to be like.”

Cartmell residents visited their new neighbors, stopping by beds to say hello, chat and hold a hand, Kozik said, and have supported staff efforts by being understanding when meals have come a few minutes later than usual, by holding their weekly Tuesday bingo games in their individual neighborhoods instead of the activity room and by giving up their over-bed tables for evacuee use.

“They’re doing just as much a part as everyone else,” Kozik said.

Cartmell administrator Debbie Harrison said the residents were glad to make their guests feel welcome in a stressful time.

“They come in and they visit with some of the residents,” Harrison said. “They are just thrilled.”

As Ike passed over Palestine, the combined Cartmell and St. James staff kept close watch on all the residents, monitoring needs and offering reassurance, he said.

“There were a lot of prayers going on, before, during and after,” Kozik said. “They wanted so badly to know that we were all going to be safe as we were trying to take care of them.”

The facility never lost power, although staff was prepared to move residents to shelter at Evangelistic Temple had it been necessary, Kozik said. When they learned that another nursing home in Crockett was without power, Cartmell staff washed and dried a truckload of its laundry as a way to help.

Tuesday afternoon, Cartmell staff presented Polk with a birthday cake and balloons celebrating her 83rd birthday, a gesture which touched her heart.

“I’m doing fine,” Polk said. “I don’t believe I could do no better. It’s a wonderful place, wonderful people. They seem like my children.

“When you meet wonderful people and they treat you nice and the food is nice, you got everything. You have nothing to worry about.”

Mary Rohrbacher made the trip to Palestine with her father, Herbert Herbert, and stayed with him at Cartmell Home to comfort and help care for him.

“I haven’t had to do this before but I can’t imagine they could have done this any smoother,” Rohrbacher said. “I’ve been very impressed, right from the beginning.”

Seeing his staff give so much of themselves, even while worrying about their own families and property, has been a blessing for all involved, Kozik said.

“The neatest thing for me is getting to see how everybody is understanding the joy of doing something for somebody else,” he said. “There’s been not one complaint.”

Harrison said that the efforts have been amazing, particularly as staff members have worked their normal shifts and then stayed on to help out or come in on days off during the duration of St. James’ residents stay. The residents were cleared to return home on Thursday.

“You add this many meals, and they’re feeding all the staff,” Harrison said. “Our laundry has not only washed the residents’ clothes, they’ve washed their staff’s clothes.

“It just showed us what we’ve got, how awesome they are.”

Their efforts have made it easy on St. James staff, LVN Kim Carter said.

“The setup that they have here is very nice because had we had individual rooms, it would be hard to run all over the place and take care of our individual patients,” Carter said. “Their staff has been ready to help us with anything we need so we could get some sleep or rest, go outside and get fresh air.

“One nurse took us to Whataburger and got us burgers with her own money. They’ve taken us to Wal-Mart just to get out. The staff is great. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

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Beth Foley may be contacted via e-mail at bfoley@palestineherald.com