States adding disabled to list of those to help in emergencies
For the first time in California, a disaster drill that was held in Riverside included disabled people. Up to this point, the state assumed that disabled people would either be helped by their caregivers, sent to hospitals or somehow make it out of the area before the disaster overwhelmed state and federal officials. The Riverside County Department of Public Health and the California Highway Patrol simulated a disaster that included deaf people. This gave officials a chance to see what was needed to get important information to the deaf community. Police and fire personnel realize through this exercise that everyone needs to be trained to communicate with the deaf in life and death situations. (Source: KABC)
SCRN worked for years with disaster recovery personnel in southeastern Florida in an effort to show what was needed during a hurricane. At first city and state officials refused to help the disabled community or even allow them into shelters. After considerable work from the Centers for Independent Living of South Florida and Marc Dubin, a disability lawyer from Key West, officials slowly changed their minds. The disabled are now allowed into public shelters and there are special beds for para and quadriplegic people that cannot sleep in a regular bed. However, even with documents from the Department of Justice showing how to transfer the disabled and communicate with them, some officials are refusing training. Broward county has a new emergency manager that has been in the job about a year and wants to fix the problems the disabled are running into with sheltering and after emergency help. The officers of SCRN moved from south Florida to Atlanta partially because it was not safe for wheelchair bound people in shelters.
Many governmental groups believe that the ADA does not apply to them or that some other local law “grandfathers” them into ignoring basic rights. That is not the case and we are working with Atlanta officials so they understand what is required of them and what they must do doing an emergency to help the disabled. This is not a matter of convenience, if police and fire officials do not help the disabled then people are going to die. We have stories from Hurricane Katrina of quadriplegics drowning in their wheelchairs because no one in emergency services could be bothered to go get them. In Florida most police and fire personnel will not help a disabled person get out of their home. Once the disabled person is outside the front door they will get help but not before. So if they cannot get into their wheelchair they may indeed be sentenced to death because emergency personnel just won’t help. We need enforcement of existing laws along with substantial penalties if local and state governments cannot get their act together. It is great that the Department of Justice has documents showing emergency personnel what their job is when dealing with the disabled, but they are not following that law. The Bush administration did nothing about this problem. Now that we are heading into the most dangerous part of hurricane season, what will the Obama administration do?
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