Officials lent surplus generators to five care homes.

When the power flickered out last week at Naquita’s Niche, the care home’s elderly residents huddled in the living room under blankets.

Nancy Morris, who operates the home near 59th Street and Rockford Avenue, said the residents were initially confused about what was happening during the ice storm until she told them that “we were sleeping in the living room because we were having a slumber party.”

But after three days without power and only a few propane heaters to warm the room, Morris was growing weary.

Then she found her angels: city officials who lent a generator large enough to power the home. Firefighters refueled it twice a day.

“It was like a godsend,” Morris said. “They said they would come out twice a day and fill it with fuel until we get the lights on.”

Mark Hogan, the manager of public facilities security for the city of Tulsa, said the small care home was one of at least five nursing centers the city helped during the outage.

Officials in the Fire Department and EMSA helped identify homes that could be powered with a 15-K generator, which is about three times the size of most residential generators.

The city obtained the large generators to run its own services but had a few extra and wanted to help the city’s most vulnerable population during the storm, Hogan said.

“It was just the right thing to do,” he said. “If you were out of state and your mom or my mom

Ziva Branstetter 581-8378
ziva.branstetter@tulsaworld.com