Nursing home operators settle fight about mandatory
air conditioning power generator regulations
Should public funds help pay for estimated
$230 million compliance costs?
Florida Construction News staff writer
How much of a market is there for
electrical contractors and generator
suppliers to provide emergency
backup power, which turned out to
be both effective and dysfunctional
(depending on the circumstances)
when Hurricane Irma blew through
Florida last September?
The answer varies, especially for
the hot-button area of backup power
requirements for nursing homes and
assisted care facilities – as lawyers
and lobbyists take their cases to the
courts and the Florida legislature.
One estimate puts the cost at $230
million – but who will pay, and when,
has been a hot-button controversy.
By January, much of the issue had
been resolved when Gov. Rick Scott
modified proposed regulations that
caused nursing home operators to
take their objections to the original
proposals to court. However, there
still are questions about the timeline
and overall cost/scale of implementa-
tion of the backup power provisions.
This story started more than a
decade ago, after Hurricane Wilma in
2005. Legislation implemented then
required gas stations to have backup
power to keep the lights on and
pumps running after a natural disas-
ter. The original legislation passed in
2006 also would have required all
nursing homes to install generators
capable of cooling and running their
facilities. “That went nowhere as the
powerful long-term care industry ob-
jected to the price tag,” the Miami
Herald has reported.
The generators worked as planned
in 2017 for the gas stations and re-
lated convenience stores, but when
Hurricane Irma hit, some assisted
care facilities were caught in a bind,
and eight people died in a Broward
County nursing home left without
power. 4 – MARCH 2018 — Florida Construction News
The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood
Hills, where eight people died when tem-
peratures soared without air conditioning
after Hurricane Irma last September.
While that nursing home and oth-
ers had limited backup power allow-
ing them to maintain lights and some
medical equipment, they were un-
equipped for the higher air condition-
ing power demands.
After the storm, Gov. Rick Scott di-
rected two state agencies to demand
that nursing homes and assisted liv-
ing facilities quickly add generators
and fuel to maintain safe tempera-
tures – and they were given a Nov. 15
deadline. However, in late October a judge
accepted industry objections to the
deadline, and overturned the regula-
tions. The Florida Health Care Associa-
tion (FHCA), representing nursing
home operators, estimates it will cost
about $230 million for more than 650
nursing homes to get the higher
powered generators needed to keep
temperatures at 81 degrees or under
for four days following a storm.
The industry says it needed more
time – and wanted public money – to
help pay the cost.
There is some deja vu here, relat-
ing to the 2006 arguments and fund-
ing battles.
There, the nursing homes fought –
and won – the argument that they
didn’t need the generators, as long as
they had evacuation plans in place.
The argument was that if nursing
homes installed generators and
would receive patients evacuated
from other locations, they should be
able to receive some government
subsidies for the generator installa-
tion costs. However, the funds never
materialized, and most nursing
homes continued with limited gener-
ator power.
Unfortunately, the option for evac-
uation to other nursing homes didn’t
work when Hurricane Irma’s course
shifted and residents who had been
evacuated from one home found
themselves stranded in another loca-
tion, that also needed to be evacu-
ated. Back in 2006, gas station opera-
tors on evacuation routes didn’t put
up a fight against the generator legis-
lation, even though they apparently
didn’t receive any subsidies for the
systems, which could have cost
$45,000 each (in 2007 dollars) to in-
stall. In fact, they helped craft the leg-
islation. “Members have a responsibility to
their communities and part of that re-
sponsibility is to comply with the
law,” Jim Smith, then president and
chief executive of the Florida Petro-
leum Marketers and Convenience
Store Association, said in a published
interview. Rules set out guidelines for
the generator requirement based on
the number of pumps, and the popu-
lation of the area the gas stations
served. While they could use
portable generators, there was also a
requirement for proper “transfer
switches” to ensure the plug-in gen-
erators would operate safely when in-
stalled. The assisted care/nursing story is
different. Industry lobbyists argued
the attempt to require generators to