ST. JOHNS, Fla. \u2014 The daughter of a resident of The Blake at St. Johns senior living center in St. Johns County is speaking out about how the last week after a fire has been handled.<\/p>\n
St. Johns Fire Rescue says a fire August 16 happened about 9 p.m. <\/a>after lightning struck the building\u2019s chimney, causing a mass evacuation and leading to dozens being displaced.<\/p>\n Karin Andreatta says her 90-year-old mother was one of the displaced, but since the fire she says they\u2019ve been left in the dark on how damaged her things are and when she\u2019ll be able to retrieve them.<\/p>\n \u201cThe communication has been non-existent,\u201d Andreatta said. \u201cThey said all our communication is gonna be through email, and you\u2019ll get updated\u2026 never, not a single email.\u201d<\/p>\n Andreatta says her mother has valuables and family heirlooms going back 60 years. She says her mother is also worried she won\u2019t be able to get her items if they\u2019ve been damaged.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s spiraling,\u201d Andreatta said. \u201cI\u2019ve been trying to keep her from thinking the worst.\u201d<\/p>\n She says they were told to make a list of essential items, but even her mother\u2019s life-dependent medication would take five days.<\/p>\n By then, she says her mother had already taken matters into her own hands \u2014 calling a pharmacy for emergency medication costing over $1,000.<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cHere\u2019s a 90-year-old woman calling the pharmacy and saying, \u2018I can\u2019t get my medication. There\u2019s been a fire. What can I do?\u2019\u201d Andreatta said. \u201cWe had no nurses calling, no care, no nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n And the expenses don\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n \u201cShe paid, of course, her whole month\u2019s worth of rent,\u201d Andreatta said. \u201cThey have not talked about [whether] she\u2019s going to get half of this money. That\u2019s well over $3,000.\u201d<\/p>\n We reached out to The Blake about some of these concerns, and President of QSL Management Leland Rice sent us the following statement:<\/p>\n A fire in a senior living community is one of the hardest things a resident, a family, or a care team can go through. Our hearts are with every resident and family affected, and we understand the urgency families feel about their loved ones\u2019 belongings and their next home. Out of respect for our residents\u2019 privacy, we will not discuss any individual resident\u2019s circumstances publicly. What we can share is what our team has been doing since the moment lightning struck on Sunday night, August 16.<\/p>\n That night, our team and first responders safely evacuated all 122 residents, with no injuries. Company leaders drove through the night to be on-site by early Monday morning and have not left since. In less than seven days, we have contacted every resident and family and relocated or accounted for every one of our 122 residents. Many have been relocated to our sister communities or to other local senior living communities, depending on their preference, together with their medications, records, and care plans.<\/p>\n From the first hours, medications and medical necessities have been our highest priority. For safety reasons, access to the damaged portions of the building has been restricted, and access limited to essential items only\u2014medications, medical equipment, and identification. Our team has worked daily under those rules to retrieve essentials for residents throughout the week. We ask that any resident or family with an urgent need to call our Family Information Line at (904) 257-8873, day or night, so we can act on it immediately.<\/p>\n This weekend we finalized a safe, structured retrieval process that begins this week: an individual appointment for every family, a professional inventory and moving team, and video walkthroughs so families can see, select, and receive their belongings. We will share full details directly with residents and families. At the same time, we are completing repairs to fire-safety systems and working with regulatory and life-safety officials to reopen the unaffected portion of the community as soon as it is safe.<\/p>\n We are grateful to the first responders, to our team members, and to the residents and families who have shown extraordinary grace this week. We will not stop until every resident is settled, every belonging is accounted for, and every family has the answers they need.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. JOHNS, Fla. \u2014 The daughter of a resident of The Blake at St. Johns senior living center…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[344,347,28,348,116,351,118,117,349,350,152384,152383,346,345],"class_list":["post-379398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action-news-jax","tag-cbs47","tag-florida","tag-fox30","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-fl","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-northeast-florida","tag-southeast-georgia","tag-st-johns-fire-rescue","tag-the-blake-at-st-johns","tag-wfox","tag-wjax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}