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Nearly 100 senior citizens evacuated from SC senior living facility arrive to Georgia

FAIRBURN, Ga. — Nearly 100 senior citizens who were evacuated from their senior living facility in South Carolina arrived at Fairburn, Georgia, Wednesday evening.

Channel 2's Tyisha Fernandes was there all day Wednesday, waiting for the buses to arrive.

It took a lot of planning and several caring people who were willing to do whatever was necessary to make the senior citizens comfortable after they were uprooted from their homes because of Hurricane Florence.

Medication and other equipment were transported in a U-Haul truck that followed the buses.

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The senior citizens reside at Somerby of Mount Pleasant in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. State officials evacuated them, so they decided to make Fairburn, Georgia, their temporary home for the next few days.

Fernandes asked the general manager of the facility why they chose Fairburn for temporary shelter and she said workers and residents traveled to the city before when they were evacuated during another weather event and they were treated so well, they decided to go back.

“We made a couple of phone calls. Everybody pulled together: The churches, the bishop. I mean if we said ‘Thank You’ a thousand times, it wouldn’t even hit the surface to be enough to say ‘Thank You,” said Hazel Patterson, general manager of Somerby of Mount Pleasant.

Fairburn city officials handed the senior citizens the following letter when they arrived:

Severe Weather Team 2 is using the most advanced technology in the world to forecast the path of Hurricane Florence, for updates throughout the day and night on Channel 2 Action News.