The elements that led to the catastrophe at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills this week should have come as no surprise—if only the people in charge thought to consider and plan for the consequences of a major South Florida hurricane.

With Hurricane Irma threatening South Florida, managers at the nursing home were ill-prepared for the potentially fatal loss of electric power. The facility had a stand-by generator for the kitchen but none for a far more critical area—the elderly residents' living quarters. Once power did fail rendering the air conditioning inoperable, and temperatures inevitably rose, a bad situation turned dire. Fans and cooling units reportedly were brought in, to no avail.

Nor did the managers have an emergency evacuation plan if internal temperatures at the nursing home reached hazardous levels. Memorial Regional Hospital, a level one trauma center, was directly across 35th Avenue from the nursing home. The hospital never lost power and reportedly had ample capacity to receive the elderly nursing home residents who were slowly being overcome by the heat.