Friendswood Health Care Center To Remain Closed

FRIENDSWOOD, TX -- It's been nearly a year since Hurricane Harvey made landfall, and nearly a year since the world saw those horrific photos of flood waters from the storm washing over this Houston area community emerged.

And in the weeks and months since the water subsided, a fence has surrounded the Friendswood Health Care Center that promised it would reopen in early 2018, but any hope of a reopening has faded.

The healthcare center, housed elderly patients before Harvey arrived, and those who stopped by to help those patients recalled seeing them sitting in the floodwaters, and unable to move.

"We went down there and checked and, sure enough, every resident was in there with, I think, four nurses and 4 feet of water, sitting in wheelchairs," Friendswood City Council Member John Scott told KPRC.

To make matters more difficult for the facility, the city council recently rejected a bid by the owners of the facility to rezone it for multi-family use.

City officials said doing so would have been dangerous, which was backed up by an investigation that said the facility failed to plan for the evacuation of 12 staff members and 68 residents, which left them waiting in four feet of water for hours, KPRC reported.

Image: Texas Army National Guard members Sergio Esquivel, left, and Ernest Barmore carry 81-year-old Ramona Bennett. (Photo by Erich Schlegel/Getty Images)

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