COLUMBUS, Ga. — The law firm representing Ralston Towers has released a statement on behalf of Ralston.

The statement reads:

The Ralston learned of the unfortunate passing of one of its residents yesterday and sends its condolences to the family of the deceased. The Air Conditioning System in the Ralston experienced a partial failure yesterday which affected certain areas of the building. Approximately ½ of the building has functioning Air Conditioning at present. After learning of the incident, Ralston Staff, with the permission of the coroner, went into the unit where the gentleman passed away to check the Air Conditioning. The thermostat had been turned off and when Ralston staff turned it on and lowered the temperature from 98 degrees where it had apparently been set by the resident, it turned on and began to blow cold air. There had been no reports of Air Conditioning issues in that unit by the tenant.

With regard to the areas of the building that were affected by the outage:

(1) The Ralston is aware of and has contacted a qualified company to perform the repairs; the system is large and complex and it takes time to even assess the problem, but the Ralston has taken immediate action to address it;

(2) Last evening, The Ralston has dispatched its staff to immediately purchase fans for every resident. 129 fans were purchased and more are being purchased today;

(3) The Ralston is in process of obtaining cooling equipment to create a “cool zone” in a common area for residents to gather while repairs are being made;

(4) The issues are being caused by a chiller on the air conditioning system which is large and complex. The Ralston has been informed the chiller needs to be replaced and it will take time for the proper parts to arrive. The Ralston has asked whether any temporary fix is available and, although the qualified contractor who has been engaged is not certain whether a temporary fix will work, the Ralston has contracted for the possible temporary fix.

While the Ralston cannot predict when an HVAC unit may fail, upon the failure occurring, it has, and is continuing to do everything in its power to address any issues created by the situation and resolve it as quickly as possible. The Ralston is hopeful that the situation will be resolved, in full, by early next week, but has taken every possible action to remediate the situation in the interim.

Travis C. Hargrove

The Finley Firm, P.C.