Thursday, 4:30 PM
Having weathered storm, residents return to nursing home
By David Abel, GLOBE STAFF
LAWRENCE — The lobby looked like a murky knee-deep pond. Water flooded the basement and stained first-floor walls; it destroyed the elevators and boiler and left the electrical system useless. Mold seemed to be everywhere.
Seventeen weeks later, the musty odor in the Mary Immaculate nursing home has been replaced by the aroma of new carpeting; the walls have been repainted, the kitchen is full of new equipment, the player piano has a new gleam.
And this week, residents have begun returning to the 250-bed facility, which was inundated in May when the Spicket River overflowed and forced an improvised evacuation of the home’s 244 elderly patients.
‘‘This is like coming home,’’ beamed Adele Autiello, 99, a lifelong resident of this old mill city who spent the past four months at a nursing home in Tewksbury. ‘‘It was really lousy to leave. I was afraid of everything, and I didn’t know where I was going. So it’s nice to be back.’’
Autiello was among the first of 170 residents expected to return to the nursing home after being scattered at 58 facilities throughout the state.
