BATON ROUGE- Nearly 80 residents at a senior housing facility had to brave the cold for more than 24 hours when the power went out and their backup generator failed.

Whealdon Estates Senior Living off Jefferson Highway near Drusilla lost power around 9 a.m. Monday. When the power went out, the backup generator failed to come on.

Robin McDonald said her mother was inside, and when her cell phone went dead there was no way to check on her.

"She was scared and a little bit cold.. and the later it got the less we could check on her because of her phone," McDonald said. "So last night around 11 p.m., we contacted the sheriff and they went and checked on the facility and all the people in there."

Tuesday morning, staff brought in a massive generator to power the three-story facility. That generator was still being hooked up around 1 p.m. that afternoon. Corporate employees told WBRZ it was too dangerous to move the residents with the icy roads. Staff said about half of the residents' families who still had electricity checked their loved ones out.

McDonald believes better planning should have been done before the storm to prevent the elderly from having to be stuck without heat for more than 24 hours.

"They are all my mom now," McDonald said. "They have all become a part of my mom's family."