MEMPHIS, Tenn. — As much of the Mid-South prepares for another dangerous heat wave, a Memphis high rise for seniors is without air conditioning once again.

This is the second time in two weeks that the air conditioning has been out at Serenity Towers. Residents told the WREG Investigators that none of the elevators are working at the taxpayer-funded complex.

An attorney for Serenity was in Environmental Court Friday to update the judge on a previous outage when he explained the air went out again this week.

A representative for the property told the court that the complex lost power during Wednesday’s storm. While it was restored, they said the air conditioning was still out.

The representative said they’re working on repairs and in the meantime, all the residents have portable units to use. However, multiple residents have said that they didn’t have portable units.

Some residents say they saw repair crews working on the air conditioning units but they are still not back on.

The judge told them he didn’t want the problem to continue throughout the weekend and ordered the parties back to court on Monday.

WREG reached out to the Ohio-based property management company that runs Serenity as well as HUD. HUD sent a statement Friday afternoon:

The wellbeing of the residents at Serenity Towers is HUD’s top priority. We are in communication with the property owner’s representative for updates; they are offering cooling stations and performing wellness checks with the tenants. A severe storm last night caused loss of power in the neighborhood; it was restored this morning. The HVAC system is on, but the elevated temperature in the building is caused by the chiller being offline. It is expected to be stabilized by the end of the day today. The elevator is expected to be operational later today.”

We also contacted County Code Enforcement about the non-working elevators and a supervisor confirmed that they would send someone out to check on the problem. 

In recent months, county code officials said that one side of elevators had been on and off. That issue had also been addressed in Environmental Court.