Rick Scott's office reportedly deleted critical voicemails from nursing home after Hurricane Irma
In this Sept. 13 photo, a woman is transported from The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills as patients are evacuated after a loss of air conditioning due to Hurricane Irma in Hollywood, Florida. Photo: Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, File
Orlando Weekly by Colin Wolf
Roughly 36 hours before the first of 11 heated-related deaths occurred at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, which lost air conditioning after Hurricane Irma knocked out power to one of the facility's transformers, Rick Scott's personal cell phone reportedly received a series of voice mails asking for "immediate assistance."
Now those voice mails are gone.
As first reported by CBS Miami's Jim DeFede, last Sunday, Scott's office confirmed that four voice mails from the center have indeed been deleted. Scott's office says the calls never alluded to any emergency, and that the information from the voice mails was passed along to appropriate agencies.
However, the center's administrators are saying the calls to Scott were actual pleas for help.
"Why not just keep it?" said Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation to the Miami Herald. "It's bothersome to say the least. Right now, we're in a he said, she said." [READ MORE]
Filed Under: Barbara Petersen, Featured, First Amendment Foundation, Florida, Governor, public records, Rick Scott, Sunshine Law Tagged With: Barbara Petersen, deleted voicemail, First Amendment Foundation, Governor Rick Scott, nursing home deaths, Public Records, Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills