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Abstract: 

It is a great irony that the criminal cases that grew out of deaths of nursing home residents and very ill hospital patients who went through Hurricanes Katrina or Rita, show just how fraught and difficult are decisions about whether or not to evacuate such residents during natural disasters: One case prosecuted deaths that happened during an evacuation, one prosecuted deaths in a home that decided not to evacuate, and one prosecuted deaths in a hospital that was—slowly—being evacuated, post flood. These are the criminal cases that grew out of the initial investigations of six Louisiana hospitals and 13 nursing homes in which at least 140 patients died, plus the Texas bus case.

Keywords: St. Rita’s; Lafon Nursing Home; fatal Texas bus fire

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