No Shelter in a Storm
Laura George, of Coral Springs, Florida, was three months pregnant when her husband Greg became paralyzed from the waist down as a result of a hit-and-run accident in March of 2006.
As Greg recuperated in the hospital, the couple began to plan for the accommodations he would need upon returning home. The Georges also started questioning staff about how they could best prepare for hurricane season, which was just a couple months away. “And they kept saying, ‘We don’t know’,” Laura recalls.
On the day Greg was discharged, Laura brought up the subject again. Staff told her that no one had asked that question before and that they could not give her an answer. Laura was in disbelief. “It shouldn’t be that way,” she told them. “This is Florida.”
Since they moved to Florida in 1992, the Georges have practiced emergency preparedness and kept critical supplies, from bottled water to flashlights, on hand. “We moved out from Michigan to Florida two months before [Hurricane] Andrew hit, so we’ve been around here long enough to know hurricanes are rather important,” Laura says.
A Horrible Choice
In August 2006, the Georges began bracing themselves for the approach of Hurricane Ernesto. At the time, Laura was nine months pregnant with their daughter Charlotte and was told to seek shelter at a local hospital in case of emergency.
“Women who are nine months pregnant, the doctors tell them to go to the hospital” when a hurricane approaches, Greg says. “Because of the drop in the air pressure, they could go immediately into labor.”
The Georges then contacted a nearby hospital to explain their situation and discuss the sheltering procedure before the storm hit. “The hospital was willing to take Laura in, but they wouldn’t accept me,” Greg says. “They said, ‘You’re in a wheelchair; you’re a spinal cord patient. We don’t have any way to take care of you and we are not going to set anything aside for you.’”
Greg was then advised by hospital staff to seek shelter elsewhere. But because Greg relies on Laura for personal care assistance, he told them that was not an option.
“Laura had to make a decision. She could either stay there in hopes of not going into labor to protect Charlotte or go with me so I could get my medical needs met. Or I could go into what is called autonomic dysreflexia,” Greg says, referring to a secondary condition of spinal cord injury in which the body’s autonomic nervous system is triggered to go into high gear before the individual is aware of it, ” which could end up killing me.”
As the storm headed their way, the Georges found themselves in the middle of the very predicament they had hoped to have a solution for months earlier. “By the way, home health aids don’t come out during a hurricane; they stay home. So I, literally, had to chose-do I go to the hospital or do I stay home with my husband?”
Laura ultimately decided to remain at home by Greg’s side. In the end, “the hurricane was a non-issue,” he said. “After that, we started poking around trying to find out where Laura and I would go during a hurricane.”
By summer’s end, Laura and Greg had made countless calls to doctors, hospitals, special needs organizations, and the American Red Cross and still had no answers.
Nowhere to Run
Following the birth of Charlotte George that September, Laura and Greg continued their search to find a shelter that could accommodate them in the future. After researching shelters throughout Florida, they were still unable to find any that could meet Greg’s needs. “We were literally a family with no place to go” in an emergency, Laura says.
Although Broward County, where the couple resides, does have five shelters designated for individuals with special needs, these facilities were not accepting people with advanced disabilities at that time.
According to Laura, the special needs shelters would not allow entry to individuals who use wheelchairs and required assistance with transferring or those who needed electrical power or air-conditioning 24-hours a day. In addition, the special needs shelter would not allow entrance to those-among others-who were incontinent and not accompanied by a caregiver.
Attempting to shelter-in-place is not an option for the Georges either since the power could go out. “Greg cannot sweat because of the nerve damage. I am not a nurse, so we are kind of required to go take shelter somewhere because if something happens to him, I have no way to help him,” Laura says.
In October, Laura contacted an official from Parkland, a nearby city, to see which shelter she would recommend. The woman’s response confirmed what the Georges already suspected: “You know, there is no shelter in Florida that takes the spinal cord injured during a hurricane.”
Time for a Change
Disheartened and disturbed by their findings, the Georges began contacting numerous politicians and special needs organizations to let them know of the situation. “In October, we started contacting everybody because I said, ‘This is wrong.’ It is scary because now I have to realize I am the key person in the family who is looking out for everyone,” Laura says.
The Georges also started attending meetings hosted by local Emergency Operations Centers and began advocating for improved accessibility and access to disaster shelters for those with all types of disabilities. “We have heard time and time again, ‘We don’t have to do that; we are not required to do that. People with disabilities are too expensive to accommodate,’” Laura says.
However, the Georges have found an ally in Chip Wilson, who was hired as Florida’s Statewide Disability Coordinator for the Division of Emergency Management in November of 2007. Wilson, a paraplegic since 1968, has a personal stake in seeing emergency shelters become more accommodating towards people with disabilities.
“I was not qualified for a special needs shelter because I am independent. I do all my routines myself; I transfer and all that kind of stuff,” Wilson says, adding, “There were some general population shelters here in Florida in recent history that I would not have been allowed in because I use a wheelchair. And, in those shelters, the sleeping arrangements….I would never have been able to sleep in anything but my chair because all they had was to sleep on the fl oor. That’s not providing accessibility based on the requirements of the ADA. I need to have the same abilities to sleep as my next door neighbor who does not have a disability.”
According to Wilson, Florida was the first state to create the emergency management position he holds. After he was hired, Wilson joined the Georges on their mission.
“My office, the Department of Health, the Red Cross, the county Emergency Operations Centers, and anybody else that we can get involved are working on making sure something like this doesn’t happen again.”
Work in Progress
While the situation is not entirely remedied yet, Wilson says that today, “There would be a much better opportunity for someone like Greg to be sheltered in a special needs shelter or a host hospital setting.”
Officials have been examining policies put forth by the American Red Cross and other shelter managers. “We are also working with the special needs shelters so they understand what’s required of them. In the past there’s been so much misinformation going around,” Wilson says of ADA and Florida accessibility codes.
Shelter managers need to understand if they are breaking the law or not meeting ADA standards “that they have an obligation to correct it,” he added.
Those with advanced special needs, like spinal cord injuries, should be able to seek refuge at any of the state’s special needs shelters-although work is still being done to ensure that can happen, Wilson said.
“A special needs shelter is where basically…they have the higher medical need people that come in-somebody that might have a dependency for electricity for a respirator, for insulin for diabetes, or even if they have quadriplegia and they don’t have good body temperature control so they would have a dependency on electricity for air conditioning,” Wilson explained.
At these shelters, individuals can also expect, “transfer assistance from the wheelchair to the bed and back, from the wheelchair to the toilets and back and also assistance as far as going through their bowel and urinary routines. That type of assistance is included in general population shelters as well. And that’s not understood well by most of the general population shelters. At least it hasn’t been, but more are understanding it as we go along and we explain to them the rules and what the laws require.”
Wilson has also been working to make general population shelters more accommodating by requiring a certain number of higher cots on site to allow for easy transfer. He also wants to set regulations so that interpreters and service animals are not turned away.
Presently, Wilson is looking at organizing an advisory panel to address emergency preparedness issues facing the special needs population in Florida. “Most of the counties have their own special needs sheltering groups. I would like to pull from each one of those and have a statewide advisory panel and have consistent information. There are some counties that are not as accommodating and most of that is a lack of education on what their requirements are.”
Emergency Preparedness Tips
As a result of their struggles with the Florida shelter system, the Georges founded a company called Spinal Cord Resources Network in an effort to put people with SCIs and their caregivers in touch with resources they may need. As part of their mission, the Georges give presentations on emergency preparedness. “We give people a whole lot of questions to think about during the season and in any disaster for that matter,” Laura says.
Here are just a few things Laura suggests people with disabilities look into:
- • Have you thought about your medical supplies, both in terms of medicine, in terms of everyday supplies you have, and in terms of stockpile?
• If you cannot take shelter in your home, where can you go? Do not assume because a shelter is there, they are going to take you. The Georges know many cases of people being refused shelter.
• If the shelter can take you, can they accommodate you? If you are by yourself and you have no caregiver, are they going to take you? By law, you are not required to have a caregiver to go into a shelter. “But a lot of places demand it and we are trying to educate everybody,” Laura says.
• What happens if you go to someone else’s home and it is damaged? If you’re in an electric wheelchair, how will you get out? Where will you go? How are you going to get your medical needs met? Sheltering in a home is ideal, but whatever disaster plan you have, you must have a backup plan in place.
• As far as what you should put in an emergency kit, for people with disabilities, food, money, clothing, things for entertainment, that’s obvious. What’s not obvious are things like a bike kit if you’re in a manual wheelchair and the tire blows. “What’s not obvious is, how many catheter kits do you use in a week?” Laura says.
• Make sure your prescriptions are with a major national chain. “Let’s say you get displaced out into another state, how are you going to access your medications?” Laura says, adding, “Let’s say you get SSDI. It better be direct deposit.”
• Does the shelter have a cot you can transfer to, like a Westcot, which also has waffl ing. “For people who are paralyzed, this helps prevent wounds.”
• Are there people on-hand to help transfer you to a bed, toilet, or shower or to help you catheterize? Do you have a service animal? Is there someone to help you take care of it?”
• Does the city provide transportation? And if you’re a quadriplegic, will they come into your home and help you get in an accessible vehicle? In addition to Laura’s advice, Wilson recommends putting labels or tags on any assistive devices you might have in case it gets borrowed or lost. And while Wilson says he is dedicated to advocating for the rights of people with disabilities through his position, he also wants these individuals to understand their responsibilities. “I’m a big proponent of that because I think personal responsibility is much more important than waiting on the government to do something for you.”
For more information or emergency preparedness tips, visit www.spinalcordresources.com.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Loading ...
User Comments
No comments yet.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.