USA Today reports that owners of the St. Rita nursing home in St. Bernard Parish, a New Orleans-area nursing home, ignored televised and government warnings of the growing strength of Hurricane Katrina and failed to evacuate 59 frail, elderly residents which resulted in the deaths of 35, a prosecutor told a jury last week.
The residents, some strapped to their beds or attached to feeding tubes, drowned when floodwaters poured into the St. Rita nursing home in St. Bernard Parish, just east of New Orleans. It was one of the deadliest events of the Aug. 29, 2005 storm.