Media Statement
September 29, 2017
On Thursday, Aug. 24, when the City of Victoria issued a voluntary evacuation, our team began
preparing our Vitality Court residents to evacuate. We immediately starting notifying our
residents’ family members in order to seek permission to move them to another facility or hotel,
gathering residents’ medical records, medications and personal belongings.
On Friday afternoon, Aug. 25, two buses were loaded and our residents and staff members were
safely evacuated to San Antonio and Austin.
Our facility in Austin hosted 26 of our memory care residents, and we secured a hotel in the San
Antonio area for 36 assisted-living residents. Several of our residents were released to the care of
their family members.
Once the bus arrived in Austin, we began checking residents into rooms. That’s when we
realized one of our memory care residents wasn’t on the bus. We immediately notified local law
enforcement and the resident’s family.
We contacted a couple of our employees and one of our community volunteers who had decided
to shelter in place during the storm. The resident was found safe inside the facility by our
volunteer who stayed with the resident until first responders arrived. The resident was
transported to the local hospital for observation. As soon as the hospital discharged the resident,
the family gave us permission to move the resident to our facility in Austin.
The safety and well-being of our residents is our top priority, and we are very sorry this
happened. We are grateful that the first responders, our employees and our volunteer were able
to safely evacuate this resident before the storm hit Victoria. We are so thankful the resident was
unharmed.
Vitality Senior Living took ownership of this community in December 2016, and it’s the first
time as a company we’ve had to evacuate a facility due to a weather event. We are reviewing our
evacuation plans carefully in order to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.
Deborah Howard
Vitality Senior Living