Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam met Thursday with state emergency officials.
Hurricane Irma dealt a blow to the state’s agricultural industries, but Putnam says the death of eight nursing home residents is tragic.
“It is probably going to stand out as the—in the scope and scale and enormity of this disaster—one of the most avoidable tragedies in the overall tragedy,” Putnam says.
“It is sickening to contemplate that they didn’t have to die.”
Damage from Hurricane Irma knocked out the nursing home’s air conditioning. Thursday afternoon more than 2.3 million accounts had no power. That’s just shy of one quarter of the state.
