SANTA ROSA — When the Tubbs Fire blazed through here in 2017 it was, at that time, the most destructive wildfire in state history.
"it was terrifying" said Michael Rodriquez who was one of a handful of workers on duty at the upscale Varenna senior home. That night in October 2017, the flames blew through the Fountaingrove neighborhood like a torch to paper. "I was helping get people down on the stairs, helping carry people down in wheelchairs and stuff."
Andre Blakely, an overnight maintenance worker..recalls placing an elderly woman on a wheelchair and pushing her to his car...
"As I went to push her down the hill, there was a speed bump and I couldn't see the speed bump.and the wheelchair hit the speed bump and ejected face first," said Blakely to KCBS Radio. "I have an old lady that's on the ground bleeding profusely from the head."
The woman survived.
Annette Revas, who was nearly nine months pregnant, was on duty as a caretaker. The power was out. It was smokey. There were tears. It was chaos, she said.
"I need to protect my baby and be safe, but I need to put that behind me and save these people and save myself to get out, so they can get out," she recalled to KCBS Radio.
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The workers have now filed a lawsuit against Oakmont Senior Living which owns Varenna and nearby Villa Capris. The latter burned to the ground in the fire. The workers claim that they were never given the tools to know what to do in a major emergency...
"The workers did everything that we could do," said Blakely. "You have to understand that none of us was trained in any evacuation programs. None of us was taught those things."
One of their lawyers is former state Sen. Noreen Evans who pointed to a scathing report by the California Department of Social Services that found both facilities were negligent.
"Villa Capris and Varenna were required to have evacuation plans so they could get their residents and staff out in case of natural disaster," said Evans. "It turns out that neither of those facilities had any evacuation plans.."
The two facilities were placed on probation for two years. As part of that settlement with the social services department, Oakmont officials admitted that staff departed before evacuating all residents.
The civil suit filed by the workers alleges libel and slander, negligence, emotional distress and several other complaints. The workers claim that Varenna officials wrongly blamed them for the dangerous scene that unfolded during the fire.
"The management, the owners, keep saying over and over again that the people that were abandoned were abandoned by the workers, the staff, the hard-working caregivers," said Michael Fiumara, another attorney representing the plaintiffs. "That's not the case at all. The truth needs to come out."
Joan Coke is an 80-year-old Varenna resident who's joined the lawsuit. The staff saved her life that night, she said.
"I went down in a tunnel of fire down past Villa Capris and I still wake up at night with nightmares about it," said Coke.
Oakmont Senior Living did not respond to repeated inquiries from KCBS Radio about the case.