State lawmakers plan to address emergency preparedness at nursing homes – Bucks Round-Up – May 1, 2026
State lawmakers plan to address emergency preparedness at nursing homes
Two Bucks County state lawmakers held a press conference across from the rubble and remains of the collapsed nursing home that suffered a natural gas explosion and fire on December 23, 2025. The blast at the 174-bed Bristol Health and Rehab Center took the lives of three people, injured about 20, and displaced 180 residents, as reported. On Thursday, April 30, State Sen. Steve Santarsiero (D-Doylestown) and State Rep. Tina Davis (D-Bristol) gathered a group of Bristol Township officials and first responders to announce proposed legislation to improve emergency preparedness at high-risk centers. The law would apply not only to nursing homes but other day-use and residential centers serving vulnerable populations. As reported by Bristol Township Fire Marshal and Emergency Management Director Kevin Dippolito, the biggest challenge facing the dozens of firefighters searching for survivors in the partly collapsed, gas-filled nursing home was that there was no available information about the possible number of people still inside, so firefighters conducted extensive, hours-long searches under dangerous conditions that turned out to be unnecessary. Santarsiero and Davis said first responders should have critical information ahead of time, such as a baseline head count in the event of a crisis like the fire and explosion last year. Therefore, the lawmakers are proposing legislation mandating that emergency preparedness plans must be shared with local and county emergency responders, which is not required under current regulations. Federal and state regulations do require nursing home administrators to maintain and annually update potential manmade or natural hazards, show the defined staff responsibilities, detailed evacuation routes, communication modes, designated safe locations, and procedures for physically assisting residents and keeping track of them. In Pennsylvania, nursing home staff must keep copies of the emergency response plans at the facility, but federal and state regulations don’t explicitly require home administrators to share emergency response plans with county or local first responders. The rules are different for the state’s roughly 1,200 personal care and assisted living centers, where the most updated copies of the emergency response plans are to be submitted to the local emergency agencies every year. The proposed legislation would establish minimum elements that should be part of emergency response plans to ensure they’re available in a disaster situation, Santarsiero said. Those elements would include procedures for accounting for individuals inside a building, a designated on-site emergency coordinator to work directly with first responders, and essential information that includes building layout, evacuation procedures, and location of building systems, especially utility shutoffs. In its preliminary report, the National Transportation Safety Board confirmed that a natural gas leak in an indoor meter set valve was responsible for two explosions and the subsequent fire that left the facility uninhabitable. No fault was assigned in the preliminary report, while a final report is expected at the end of this year.
Falls Township awards multi-million road repair contract
A busy Lower Bucks County community is going to get a facelift. Falls Township supervisors this week approved a $3.66 million allocation for its township road program, with work beginning this summer. The supervisors approved and awarded the contract to James D. Morrissey Inc. The work involves full-depth reconstruction of more than half of Willow Drive in the Willowood section of Levittown, which involves rebuilding the road from the base up. Additionally, the plan calls for mill and overlay work on North and South Olds and Cabot boulevards. Lynn Avenue, First and Second streets, and Mill Creek Road from Route 13 to the end will be milled and repaved. It was noted the contract came in over the township’s projected budget. Engineer Joe Jones said, despite the cost, the quote from the lowest responsible bidder was fair given the condition of the roads. The Falls manager said the township has the necessary funds to move forward with the project and also pay for additional work.
The engineering world opens for Central Bucks elementary students
It is a new and brighter world, indeed. The Central Bucks Education Foundation announced its $17,500 grant award to Central Bucks district teachers to purchase new equipment for elementary schools, including 3-D printers and a kid-friendly ChompSaw power tool for cutting cardboard, which is considered difficult to cut. They were ordered for each elementary school, and one teacher said the new tools open a world of elite engineering for students of all ages. Fifth grade teacher Jared Hottenstein is a technology innovator at Jamison Elementary School who designed several unique lessons in math, science, and character education, which integrate engineering into the classroom. With the new equipment, students experience a variety of learning and develop critical problem solving and spatial reasoning skills as they design, test, and refine their own creations. And educators know hands-on experiences build confidence in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). The variety of educational tools available to the students helps them develop critical problem-solving and spatial reasoning skills as they design, test, and refine their own creations, according to the foundation. Among its other initiatives, the foundation recently granted additional funds for CB West drones, a new sensory space to help self-regulation and emotional wellness at Doyle, ninth grade attendance at a Tamanend Shakespeare performance, Apple Airpods to enable translation assistance at Buckingham, a snack cart business run by autistic support students, and the creation of a new Doylestown Historical Society art mural by Lenape art students. The CB Education Foundation is an independent 501 (c)(3) nonprofit that relies completely on private and business donations to enable grant funding. To make a donation, visit the foundation’s website cbeducationfoundation.org.
Pat Wandling is a veteran journalist, formerly of The Bucks County Courier, and was a mainstay on WBCB for over 20 years.
