Viral photo of flooded assisted-living facility  in Houston demonstrates importance of disaster preparedness for senior living communities. With so many heartbreaking images of the devastation visited upon Houston by Hurricane Harvey, the photo of residents of the La Vita Bella assisted-living center in Dickinson stands out. The photo, which depicts several seniors submerged in murky, waist-high flood waters, triggered outrage after gaining widespread attention on Twitter and other social media outlets. By Sunday afternoon, an evacuation was underway, with all the eventually relocated to a nearby nursing home. With a new photo of the now safe and dry residents now making the rounds online, questions still linger regarding the delay in emergency services, with some of the resident’s family members telling CNN they were forced to post the photo on Twitter in an attempt to trigger a rescue effort. “They were basically told no one was coming because they couldn’t reach them,” Kim McIntosh, mother of resident Trudy Lampson, told CNN. “That’s when we decided to go ahead and tweet the photos.” Preparing For Disaster While the situation at La Vita Bella is, hopefully, an extreme example, the catastrophe triggered by Hurricane Harvey serves as yet another reminder of the importance of disaster preparedness. As Jay Shelton, Senior Vice President, at Assurance Risk Management, writes in a December 2015 issue of Senior Housing Business, “The best time to write one of these plans is, frankly, yesterday.” “Without prior planning, you leave your organization open to financial disaster,” he continues, “especially if you are forced to close operations for a period of time. In addition, without a proper plan to cope with a disaster, your facility may face lawsuits from vendors, employees or residents’ families claiming negligence.” Prioritize and Delegate When developing an emergency preparedness...