By Brenna R. Kelly
Enquirer staff writer

When her boss asked who could go to Florida to help elderly residents forced out of their assisted living center by a hurricane, Sonia Rice quickly stepped forward.

"I knew that I was needed here," the certified nursing assistant said from Brooksville, Fla., Friday, where she and eight other employees from Atria Summit Hills, a Crestview Hills retirement and assisted living center, were caring for displaced residents from a similar facility near West Palm Beach.

But now, their new location, near Florida's West Coast, may be in the path of Hurricane Ivan.

As Ivan approaches, five other members of the Boone County Citizen's Corp are headed south to help hurricane victims.

Last week, the members flew to Atlanta, where they will receive Federal Emergency Management Agency training, said Mark Ihrig, deputy director of Boone County Emergency Management.

The volunteers are Dianna Thompson, of Hebron, Pat Cornell, of Burlington, and Gary Zumbiel, Jenny Miller and Darcy Driscoll, all of Florence. They will work for two weeks to help victims get FEMA assistance.

Workers at the Brooksville, Fla., center are watching Hurricane Ivan closely, said Jim Joseph, Atria spokesman. If needed, the company could move the workers and residents to a home in Orlando.

The local workers don't know when they will return to Kentucky but were told they would be in Florida at least a week.

The workers and 60 residents have been sleeping on air mattresses and are trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Rice, of Covington, said she misses her 9-year-old daughter, and the residents at Summit Hills.

"I'm torn between three families, my family at home, my residents and my residents here," she said.

The residents can't return to their home near West Palm Beach because the facility still doesn't have electricity and suffered some water damage.

"(The Brooksville center) is not their home," Jessica Proffitt, of Covington, also a certified nurses assistant, "but we are trying to make it as homey as possible."

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E-mail bkelly@enquirer.com