LEXINGTON, Mass. — Over 100 residents were evacuated from a nursing and rehabilitation center Saturday night after an apparent electrical issue, fire officials say.
According to Lexington Fire Chief Derek Sencabaugh, fire crews were dispatched to the CareOne facility at 178 Lowell Street to reports of a “major power failure.”
Sencabaugh said that the building had been having issues “on and off again” for the past few days.
Sencabaugh added that the building’s power was tied into nearly all aspects of the building, including the sewage system. The order to de-energize the building was given.
“The sewer system is tied into the electricity as well so until we can figure out what’s going on, we’ve ordered the building to be de-energized and to have all the residents evacuated,” Sencabaugh said.
Mutual aid from other fire departments arrived to assist in evacuating residents from the building, including a program called MassMAP, or the Massachusetts Long Term Care Mutual Aid Plan.
“It’s kind of like a mutual aid between nursing centers when they have an event like this,” Chief Sencabaugh said. “So these patients and residents that are here are not going primarily to hospitals. They’re going out to other nursing centers in town, as well as CareOne has some others throughout the state.”
In a statement to Boston 25 News, a spokesperson for MassMAP said: “The Massachusetts Mutal Aid Plan for Long-Term Care facilities was activated last night following multiple utility failures. CareOne Lexington, the Department of Public Health, local first responders and area nursing facilities worked together to promptly and safely transfer residents overnight, while utility crews assess and repair systems.”
The chief said that it was a synchronized process to evacuate the patients, but time-consuming. Additionally, he added that a maintenance worker was injured during the process but is expected to be ok.
No word yet as to when the power will be fixed or when the building will be reopened.
“They’ll have to come in and test everything over the next day or two and try to isolate where the problem is before we can allow everybody to come back,” Sencabaugh said.
Boston 25 News has reached out to CareOne and is waiting to hear back.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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