Orlando Weekly by Colin Wolf

September 25, 2017

Roughly 36 hours before the first of 11 heated-related deaths occurred at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, which lost air conditioning after Hurricane Irma knocked out power to one of the facility’s transformers, Rick Scott’s personal cell phone reportedly received a series of voice mails asking for “immediate assistance.”

Now those voice mails are gone.

As first reported by CBS Miami’s Jim DeFede, last Sunday, Scott’s office confirmed that four voice mails from the center have indeed been deleted. Scott’s office says the calls never alluded to any emergency, and that the information from the voice mails was passed along to appropriate agencies.

However, the center’s administrators are saying the calls to Scott were actual pleas for help.

“Why not just keep it?” said Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation to the Miami Herald. “It’s bothersome to say the least. Right now, we’re in a he said, she said.” [READ MORE]