This came up on Gary North's site on 1/9/1999.

He got it from the Y2K Weatherman mailing list. Gary titled it:
If You Have an Elderly Parent, Read This Posting Twice

Dear Y2k Weatherman,

My family owns and operates two nursing homes here in Texas. We are located about 3 hours east of Dallas in a very rural part of East Texas. About 6 weeks ago we received a letter from TDHS (Texas Department of Human Services) concerning Y2k. The letter stated that we, as nursing home owners, had to be able to guarantee the safety and well being of all of our residents regardless of whatever might happen with Y2k. If we were not able to give this guarantee then we could possibly lose our Medicare and Medicaid certification, i.e., NO MONEY! Over 90% of of the revenue to operate our nursing homes comes through these agencies.

When we did a little digging and calling around, we were told that we should have around 6 months of food and water for our residents. 6 months of food and water for 100 little old people or face no payment from the state?! We also learned that we could possibly experience a 2 to 4 month delay in vendor from the state. ("Vendor" are payments we receive from government agencies.)

The State is being very careful to only "suggest" and not formally request these guidelines. Were they to publish guidelines, they would have to give some type of reimbursement to us for the extra provisions, etc. That is the rub, money. To declare it would cost too much money in reimbursement funds. Therefore, they are being VERY careful to let us know that our certification is dependent on being able to provide health and safety for these frail elderly. But that is all they are saying.

We called Gov. Bush's office in Austin and asked for guidance. We were handed off to an information committee or something. The people there told me they were working with Bush and that he was going to use the National Guard. We have had no further communication from the state regarding Y2k, just that one broad "cover our behinder parts" letter. You can't tell me "they" don't KNOW something is going on. We called our city manager only to find out that our county has no disaster plan; therefore, we do not qualify for any FEMA funding. However, since our nursing homes are listed as evacuation sites for the county because we have a generator!

After meeting with our city manager and county disaster coordinator, we realized that water was our most critical issue. We are drilling a well on our property just to be safe, and an electrical engineer at our church will help us with a solar pump. We have also started storing rice and beans (when combined they provide a complete protein).

We bought six 20 gal. propane tanks to use with portable heaters in our halls after reading your newsletter on propane heaters. Thanks so much. We have are having 1000 gal. of additional propane stored at the facility and the gas company is going to make us some fittings to refill the smaller tanks. After talking with TDHS Region 5, we are reasonably sure we are the only nursing home making any preparation.
... However, we are a small family owned organization, and although we work there as a team we certainly don't have the resources to care for 100 elderly people unless their expenses are covered by Medicare and Medicaid as they normally are.

Thanks for the Y2kWatch News reports. ... ."

Signed,
Preparing for the Elderly in East Texas
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If the power & water go down, nursing homes will close and families will be called to take home their elderly relatives. Even if Medicaid goes down, nursing homes will close. Same with foster homes, and of course hospitals. We cannot even imagine caring for ill elderly patients without hot water. Our Fire Depts are very worried about frail elderly ...

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), January 10, 1999

Answers

Give Grannie a 12 gauge and some shells.

Sounds like the county will use the well prepared site as an emergency shelter. The 6 months of food will last about 6 days, if hundreds of unprepared refugees come calling. There will be no money from any fed agency, if the SHTF.

-- Bill (bill@microsoft.com), January 10, 1999.

Deja vue:

"... At night the temperature in our living room, where Oma slept on the couch, dropped below freezing. Ma wrote to Pa that "the chamber pots under the beds froze nightly for almost three months." Even though this was a frozen-pisspot winter, Pa, as always, dismissed this as complaining and had no words of comfort for us. Oma spent the end of her life on her sofa, over her frozen chamber pot and under a down blanket. For twenty years she had suffered bronchial catarrh and entertained us by coughing and spitting into a mug. According to scientific computations, at a rate of two an hour, for fourteen hours a day, she had produced at least two hundred thousand green blobs in her lifetime. In other words many, many liters of it. Like Mrs. Heddens she never seemed to get empty. Or did she die because she became empty? We kept a damp cloth by her sofa so she could wipe her face. In the mornings her cloth was often frozen like the pee in her pot. And so one day was Oma. She was tired of spitting and simply died. Days later she was loaded onto a farmer's cart and hauled to a nearby village where she had been born, to be buried. Her set of teeth that she always kept beside her went with her. Oma, white and stiff, rumbled down the brick road to her grave in a black box ...

-- TTF (seenit@ww2.com), January 10, 1999.

Just read the thread where ppl are beginning to contemplate surviving with their relatives cramped into a smallish space. The precipitious emptying of elder-care facilities will create tense and difficult home situations for stressed families.

Assisted Living Facilities have become a huge trend on the West Coast. So many older Americans have sold their homes and moved into these places! We do hospice care in them, and know that once a person loses mental clarity, mobility, or continence, the assisted living placement is no longer appropriate and the family is asked to re-locate the elder. These facilities are not willing to incur liability by housing frail residents when the utilities are down. It will be back to dtr/son/granddtr's house. Medicaid legislation has already placed the legal burden of care and responsibility on the next of kin.

Should get interesting.

Ashton & Leska in Cascadia, watched these facilities sprout up like weeds

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), January 10, 1999.

TTF: thanks a lot guy, I was trying to eat breakfast..

-- a (a@a.a), January 10, 1999.

Sorry a,

But that's how it was; and may be again for some of us. Soon.

-- TTF (seenit@ww2.com), January 10, 1999.

I heard this letter was a hoax that had been circulating quite awhile. I was told this by an RN. Of course maybe she was just being defensive, but I don't think so.

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), January 10, 1999.

Hoax or no hoax, what's the difference? Can the nursing homes take care of the elderly in 2000 if not prepared? If they prepare, is the government paying for it now? I don't think so. I've worked in a nursing home 3 years, in normal times with no y2k threats, and the government always tried to take away meager funding.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), January 10, 1999.

Well, I guess I should read this board a little more carefully. If I had read that it was possibly a hoax I would have kept my big mouth shut, and saved a lot of people a lot of trouble. Below is an e-mail I just sent to the Y2K Weatherman concerning his recent "Risk to the Elderly" e-mail.

I normally just lurk here and this is actually my first post. This topic just really has me steamed, and that includes at myself too! Passing on unfounded and undocumented rumor does us *no good*! and it certainly hurts our credibility in the future.

*************

Dear Y2K Weatherman,

Could you please respond on a couple of items concerning this topic ["Risks to the Elderly"] from one of your recent e-mails. One, just who is this East Texas nursing home provider, and two, how did you verify their story.

My reason for asking is to try to determine who is pulling the wool over whose eyes. In good faith, I passed your e-mail on to someone who works in an industry similiar to this nursing home provider. (This individual, whom I know intimately, prefers to remain nameless at this point due to the hullabaloo it caused at their place of employment today.) They in turn passed it on to their supervisor. A flurry of calls was made, and the final word at the end of the day was that this was a hoax. Some senior management were *not happy* with my un-named insignificant other for the amount of time wasted on this.

Now as to the who's pulling the wool over whose eyes, I have 3 choices. 1) My husband's, er...I mean that un-named individual's place of employment, a large government agency, is in on "the conspiracy" and lying to their own; 2) the un-named nursing home provider fooled you --- in which case, I hope you will send a retraction out soon; and 3) you were the originator of the hoax --- sorry, but I did receive this from you... I hope it's not #3, but if that is the case then please un-sub me from the list.

The "Risks to the Elderly" has been posted on some y2k boards. I'm sure you feel as I do that the known facts provide enough of a concern without us increasing people's fears with questionable material. Therefore, I will post on these boards that the "Risks to the Elderly" has come under some question.

Hope to hear from you soon.

[name withheld here]

-- Just call me... ("L"@embarassed.com), January 13, 1999.