Survey Results: Insights for Senior Care Facilities

Survey Results from 115 Administrators Across the United States

May - August 2025

Overview

Senior care facilities across the country are taking emergency preparedness more seriously than ever. In a recent survey of 115 administrators and managers, 98% reported that preparedness has become a greater focus in the past few years. As you’ll see - COVID-19, extreme weather events, and regulatory requirements have reshaped priorities.

Facilities are making progress, especially with food reserves, but gaps remain in water storage,
evacuation planning, and staffing capacity. This report summarizes the current state of readiness, the challenges administrators are most concerned about, and the areas where more attention is needed.

Preparedness Is Increasing

• 98% of respondents reported an increased focus on emergency preparedness.

• Driving factors include:

  • Severe weather events (hurricanes, freezes, wildfires)
  • Lessons learned during COVID-19
  • Stricter state and CMS survey requirements

📌 Key Insight: Preparedness is no longer optional. It is now a boardroom-level priority in senior care.

Emergency Food Reserves

There are several ways to stretch your emergency budget without cutting corners:

• About 9% of respondents do not think most facilities keep 3 days of emergency food, mostly due to storage issues.
  
  

Drinking Water Reserves

1 in 5 facilities may not have enough water in a crisis.

• About 18% expressed doubt that most facilities carry 3 gallons of emergency water per resident, noting challenges like storage space or reliance on alternative water sources (e.g., wells, boilers).

📌 Key Insight: Drinking water remains a pain point for many facilities, exposing residents to greater risk and creating compliance issues.  

Challenges with Emergency Evacuations or Drills

When asked about the greatest challenges during evacuations and drills, administrators consistently cited:

• Resident Mobility and Physical Condition: This includes the difficulty of moving bed-bound residents, those in wheelchairs, or individuals with limited mobility, especially when navigating stairs or needing to move quickly.
• Staffing and Manpower: Concerns include insufficient staff numbers, high staff turnover, and ensuring all employees are adequately trained and take drills seriously.
• Transportation: Challenges securing enough vehicles, managing the logistics of moving residents and limited bus capacity.
• Resident Compliance and Understanding (especially during drills): This involves residents not taking drills seriously because they know it's not a real emergency, or residents with memory issues becoming confused or frightened.

📌 Key Insight: Evacuation is where policies meet reality—and where facilities face their toughest challenges.

Challenges for Senior Care Facilities: Looking Ahead

 Similar to the previous question, this was open-ended, with several prominent themes from the 115 responses:

• Staffing: This remains a critical concern due to high turnover rates, and the ongoing need for proper training and retention of qualified personnel.

• Evacuation Transportation: Securing sufficient and timely transportation, along with agreements for offsite rally spots or sister locations, continues to be a major hurdle.
• Funding, Resources, and Cost: Rising prices for emergency supplies, equipment (like generators), and operations, coupled with limited budgets and FEMA funding, pose significant financial challenges.
• Resident Needs and Mobility: As residents are staying in senior care facilities longer and are older with more severe disabilities or memory impairments, providing appropriate care and ensuring their safe evacuation becomes increasingly complex.
• Communication, Planning, and Preparedness: This includes the ongoing effort to keep emergency plans updated, adapting to new scenarios (e.g., technology failures), and ensuring staff are well-trained to prevent panic.
• Weather and Natural Disasters: Facilities are concerned about preparing for specific regional threats such as freezes, hurricanes, power outages, and the general unpredictability of extreme weather conditions.

📌 Key Insight: Administrators see a future where costs rise, risks increase, and staff bandwidth continues to shrink—making preparedness harder to sustain without new solutions.

Conclusion: Trends, Gaps, and Challenges

Summary of Key Findings

As emergency events like natural disasters and public health crises continue to challenge the senior care sector, emergency preparedness has become an increasingly critical focus. This informal survey of approximately 115 individuals working across senior care facilities provides insight into current trends, strengths, and areas of concern.

Preparedness Is Increasing Across the Board

• An overwhelming 98% of respondents reported that senior care facilities have increased their focus on emergency preparedness in recent years. This shift is largely attributed to major weather events (e.g., freezes, hurricanes) and the COVID-19 pandemic, which exposed critical vulnerabilities.
  
  

Emergency Supplies: Food and Water Reserves 

• Emergency Food:
  • 91% of facilities are believed to maintain at least a 3-day supply of shelf-stable food, often due to state regulations. Some go beyond, with reserves lasting 7 to 30 days.

• Drinking Water:
  
  • Administrators believe 1 in 5 facilities don’t have the recommended 3 gallons per resident, leaving facilities potentially underprepared. A noteworthy gap given how critical hydration is to our seniors.
    
    

Voices from the Field
Anonymous Quotes from managers running senior care facilities:

• "Water is always the issue. Food we can store. Water takes up too much space, and has to be replaced yearly."
• "Transportation is our biggest hurdle. We just don’t have enough vehicles to move everyone quickly, especially in a real emergency."
• "Residents with dementia get scared during drills. It’s hard to explain what's happening without causing distress."
• "Every year we update our emergency plan, but the hardest part is keeping up with the training, especially with staff turnover."

Senior care facilities across the country are taking emergency preparedness more seriously than ever before. But even with that progress, there are still important gaps that need attention.

Water storage, transportation planning, staff training, and support for residents with complex needs are not just operational details, they are essential to keeping people safe when it matters most.

The Administrators  we spoke with are doing this work every day. They know what is at stake. Their insights show that while policies and checklists are important, real preparedness comes down to the people planning, training, leading, and responding when a crisis hits.

Authored by:
Connor Broussard
Intern for Peak10 Emergency
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