Residents, managers of some P.E.I. seniors' homes 'struggling' with lack of power

Residents of some seniors' homes are among the thousands on P.E.I. who are still without power 10 days after post-tropical storm Fiona.

A generator is supplying some power to Bevan Lodge, but given that the long-term community care facility houses vulnerable residents, owner Charlotte Bevan wishes they could get hooked back to the grid sooner.

"We are supposed to be on the priority list, so that's kind of confusing for us," she told CBC News. "Half of the street does have power, but starting at us, all the way up the rest of the street, there's no power."

The lodge has had to ration what power it uses, and the long outage is an extra worry for residents who are already struggling with physical and mental disabilities.

"It's really hard on the residents," Bevan said. "It's been very stressful for myself."

Maritime Electric has said seniors' facilities and community care homes are priorities for reconnection, but some are hard for crews to reach and in areas where poles had to be rebuilt.

Generator 'collapsed'

At Geneva Villa, power was out for seven days, and the generator stopped working before power came back, said administrator Diane McQuaid. 

"Our generator was running for five and a half days and then it collapsed."

Staff understand the area was hit hard, so expected it would take a while to get power back. They were able to borrow a generator from the City of Charlottetown, but the elevator still couldn't run, and the generator powered only the lights in common areas. People had to use flashlights in their rooms. 

Six people fell during the outages, McQuaid said.

"It was because of the darkness. They just lost their balance or footing or something…. The seniors were having difficulty with it. They were struggling with the lack of power."

The Mount Continuing Care Community was about eight days without power. 

"We were told that there were some priorities, but it certainly wasn't clear what the plan was and how those were going to be rolled out," said administrator Lindsay Dickieson.