Do you have a fire plan? Do you have any idea how you would deal with a fire in your home? This is not the kind of plan that you want to put together as you go along. I would call your local fire department and have then stop by and help you with your plan. They will help you to determine the best way to get out of the home and where additional ramps may be needed. They will also look around your house and let you know  which room would be best to barricade yourself into. Some rooms will be easier and therefore faster to get you out depending on windows and the construction materials of your home.

While you are thinking about fire prevention and safety, now is a good time to get carbon monoxide detectors for your home. Note that this is not something that your smoke detector looks for. If you have a fire somewhere, the carbon dioxide will set off the alarm before your smoke alarm, goes off. Don’t forget about flashlights in case the fire happens during the night you can still find your way around. All these small things can add up to a home that is safer. It also makes you better able to survive a fire instead of trying to create a plan out of your head. That is a way to get yourself in trouble with no way out. This, like many things is made more difficult because of your injury or disability. But planning could easily save your life.

It is not surprising that we are ill prepared to handle a serious attack from the Internet. In the scenario Wall Street was closed down for a week while the power was turned back on. It would be impossible to calculate the tremendous damage to our economy that would happen if no one could trade on the stock exchange for a week. There would be runs on companies, mutual funds, and probably banks. How many companies would be wiped out when things first started up again? How many workers would find themselves unemployed and their bank accounts emptied because of bank failures. People would have to figure out how to stay alive for months while the feds figured how to pay for all the accounts in banks that were insured. If you do get a check, where do you cash it? What other bank do you truest to open up a new account? Does the postal system even work? There are substantial documents that are super secret that outline COG, or continance of government. These papers outline what to do in the case of a nuclear attack where the federal government is substantially damaged. There are outlines for who is responsible for what and how to ring the economy back on line. Many aspects of that document would have to be implemented if we were to get our country back off the ground again.

How would the disabled fare in this environment? If you are in a hospital situation then you are probably the safest of anyone. Major hospitals would be the first to get power and supplies. But if you are either at home or at a shelter then things are going to get ugly quickly. Everyone saw what happened in Hurricane Katrina at the Superdome where basic supplies were gone and people were living without clean water or sanitary conditions. The government has shown that it is not prepared to deal with a large emergency and that it takes time for groups like the military to get involved and get assets to the area. During that time everyone, especially the disabled must be able to fend for themselves for the better part of a week. Hoping that someone from state or federal government is going to come knocking on your door with food, water and medical supplies is a pipe dream. Those folks that need a nurse to get going in the morning need to make arrangements to have someone stay with them during the storm so that when roads are blocked, power is out and there is no gasoline your nurse is already in the house and can help you immediately. If you require drugs that have to be refrigerated then get a small refrigerator and a few uninterruptible power supplies or a generator to keep the fridge running. Make a spot in your home that can hold food, water and other supplies for a week for each person in your household, including your helpers. That will give you enough time for emergency crews to get power back up and police and fire crews to get things back under control.

How well you fare in an emergency is directly tied to how well you prepared. Those that have generators or UPS systems will find that life without power is more of an inconvenience. Food and water are the most important things you can have and things can get ugly if you run out of either. It is easy to stock up before an emergency and to keep track of dates so things do not go bad. Make sure that you also include manual can openers to open cans of soup. Since electricity may be an issue you should also include a couple of battery powered flashlights and a radio. If you have the budget for it get a battery powered digital television so that you can pick up local stations. This is a good place to start to set up an emergency kit to help you in times of bad weather or national emergency. Either way you should be able to stay at home for 7 to 10 days without food or water to make sure you don’t run out of supplies before emergency crews get a handle on the situation.

In addition to your body becoming used to a particular medication, it may also become allergic to the medication or something in the pill causing you problems. In my case something in pain medication was taking for a while was creating pain that made my doctor write a breakthrough medication for it. By changing out the pain pill, he was able to drop the power of the medication by half and the extra pain disappeared. That meant that I also didn’t need to take that extra breakthrough drug. Any time you can remove a drug from your list it is time to celebrate. With the number of contraindications and interactions that are hard to pin down, the fewer things you are taking the better.

While you are working with your doctor to switch things out, find out if there are older drugs that can do the work of  that newer wiz-bang pill. Chances are the older drug is better understood and much cheaper because there are generics out. That can keep you out of the doughnut hole which is always a good idea. Plus, update your drug list along with any issues and problems that you are experiencing. Keep that document on you at all times in case you have to go to the hospital. You can get those doctors quickly up to speed on your problems and issues even if they can’t get hold of your regular pain doctor. That includes blood pressure, temperature issues, blood sugar, and an other items that you normally track. This can also let you see trends or changes that you didn’t notice before. That can stop problems before they become serious and keep you out of the hospital for an extended stay.

One would think that this was the script from a “B” movie in Hollywood, but states all over the country are debating the use of the New York protocols to determine what to do during an emergency and how to ration supplies that run low during a virus outbreak. However, public opinion has been strongly against any kind of rationing like this, and officials have worked hard to keep the public out of meetings that discuss these protocols. Our only safety net is that most states have not implemented this plan as law and most are worried what would happen to public opinion if they did put it into law. While officials are trying to state that this is for the national good and that work must be done to make sure medical care is available neglect to explain how this is going to occur. No one in any meetings to discuss the New York Protocols are willing to say that the will take ventilators and other lifesaving medical equipment from a person merely because they are disabled. We have not heard of something this sinister since the Nazi plan to rid the Reich of people that were “broken or not whole”. People that were forced to live in nursing homes because of disabilities were carted off to the same killing centers that the Jews were sent to. This law appears to allow the state to do the same type of thing under the veil of doctors and hospitals trying to give care to those that desperately need it.

People that live in states that frequently have disasters like Florida, Louisiana and California need to look carefully and see what their state officials are working on in this arena. If your state is looking to implement the New York Protocols you need to call everyone you know to put a stop to it. If this is allowed to become law then the governor of your state can decide at will that the disabled do not deserve to live and will be denied medical care that they may need to survive because others are felt to have a better chance to live. The control of life at this level is disgusting and it is sad that any doctors would be willing to put time and effort to make this a reality. No one should have the basic right to control who lives and who dies without having the family involved.

Just as we recommend that you stay in touch with your congressman and senators, we also recommend that you become part of local emergency simulations. Everyone has something to bring to the table and this lets the disabled become part of the action where they can help and community leaders learn about new people that can help during emergencies. Rather than sitting at home and staring at the television  get out of the house and help those around you. This not only lets you help others, but the community learns about you and what your needs are during an emergency. So instead of being stuck at home, the police know about you and can quickly send help to get you out of the house. Become part of something larger than yourself that changes throughout the year providing help and training to everyone. Don’t be just a victim that sits in the house waiting for something to go wrong, getting out of the house will make your life better by getting yo9u hooked up with people across all social boundaries.

Emergency Responders and the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Community: Taking the First Steps to Disaster Preparedness

A training curriculum provided by the Community Emergency Preparedness Information Network (CEPIN) and developed by and for emergency responders and deaf and hard of hearing consumers

TOPICS COVERED:
- Understanding Hearing Loss: Communication modes and barriers
- Emergency Responder Roles: What do they do? What tools are needed?
- Emergency Preparedness: Responsibilities of consumers and responders
- Partnering for a Safer Community: How to become involved in community preparedness, response and recovery activities

The information presented in this training will benefit anyone involved with emergency planning, response and recovery efforts. The primary focus of the curriculum is direct interaction between emergency responders and people who are deaf, hard of hearing, late-deafened or deaf-blind. The Train-the-Trainer course is intended to teach participants how to provide “Emergency Responders and the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Community: Taking the First Steps to Disaster Preparedness” to citizens in their community. Check out our website at www.cepintdi.org for registration forms and more information.

TRAINING DATES & LOCATIONS:

November 6
Salt Lake City, Utah

November 16 & 17
Austin, Texas

December 5
Burlington, Vermont

TBA
Florida

NOTE: ASL interpreters, assistive listening systems and realtime captioning will be provided. All other accommodations will be provided upon request.

CEPIN would like to thank Hamilton Relay for providing lunch and refreshments at all official trainings being provided this grant period.

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?

Things are just as screwed up during the emergency. The Red Cross all out REFUSES to help the disabled transfer from wheelchairs to beds. Good luck of you need help getting into the bathroom. There are many documented cases of people in wheelchairs defecating on themselves because no one will help them into the bathroom. Even though it is the law of the land to help the disabled through the ADA, and there is even documentation from the federal government on how to work with the disabled, the Red Cross says the law does not apply to them. This could be fixed by the states and counties that pay the Red Cross to help those after an emergency by forcing them to follow the law or stop using them. But that never happens. The counties and states do not want to police the groups that supposedly help the public after a hurricane so groups like the Red Cross get paid to do little more than hand out cold coffee and bags of ice.

Many people don’t hear about this because it is impossible to force groups like the Red Cross to do their jobs during the emergency. A hurricane is on it’s way and they refuse to let you on the bus. So you have to make a decision – scream at them to follow the ADA and be left behind, or let them get you out of there. But the transportation means your service dog is left behind along with your wheelchair. SInce the Red Cross doesn’t have the facilities to take care of the disabled, they send you off to a nursing home that does not have the staff to keep you safe. The disabled end up with bed sores which sends them off to hospitals for weeks on end to fix these problems. After getting out of the hospital you now have to fight with your insurance company to get a new wheelchair because your old one was left at the bus stop and was washed away during the storm. Then you get to take weeks searching for your service dog which hopefully was picked up by one of the animal control groups that hopefully has a no-kill policy. It is not unusual to spend two to three months searching animal shelters before you find your dog again.

For those that end up in a shelter, the deaf find it impossible to find out what is going on or what facilities are available to them. There are documented cases of the deaf starving in shelters because no one let them know that food was available and where to get it. They are not told up to the minute new stories so they don’t know the severity of a storm or when they can go home. There are no facilities for the deaf to make phone calls to their families to let them know they are safe. But the able bodied are allowed to make those same phone calls. Note that there are counties that have agreed to hire sign language translators so that the deaf have someone to converse with and tell them what is going on. But it isn’t everyone and money is not a reason to leave the deaf to starve in the dark. The ADA has guidelines that are republished by the federal government on what to do for the deaf community, but those documents are typically tossed aside and ignored.

As long as no one sues there is little reason to change how things are done. The newly disabled think that they can just go to a shelter and be handled as anyone else and get the help they need. It is giant surprise when they call and find out they are not welcome in the shelter and will be sent either home or to the hospital. Upon getting to the hospital, they find that most hospitals will not take the disabled because they cost too much. Nurses and doctors need to be present to help with bowel programs and to dispense medication like blood pressure and insulin to the disabled. That all costs money that the hospital doesn’t want to pay – even if the ADA says they must do this because even accessibility is guaranteed. So the disabled are then sent to special needs which typically won;t take anyone that is quadriplegic or has chronic pain because they don’t have medics, nurses, or doctors willing to transfer or give medication to those individuals. So  you get to go  home. the most dangerous place with no help because the nursing staff is home with their families. One hopes their houses don’t collapse during storms or tornadoes. Bottom line is the disabled are left to their own devices to stay alive while the able bodied are well taken care of by the governmental infrastructure. Our tax dollars hard at work.

A possible solution would be to call the hard of hearing using a TDD so that they know that there is danger that needs to be addressed. With TDD calls and large text messages on all cable and satellite channels will go a long way to keep the hard of hearing safe. New technologies will certainly make it easier to let the various disabled communities that they are in danger and must take shelter. It is also important to push the meteorologists to give the communities more time to deal with tornadoes, hail, lightening, or other dangerous issues that must be handled. Those in wheelchairs could take considerable time to get down stairs to the point where the storm will always hit before the disabled can get to safety in their basement. We need to let the FCC and our congressmen how important it is to keep everyone safe during an emergency and that all groups need to be thought of for any alarm system. Forgetting about the disabled communities will guarantee that we will have casualties that could have easily been avoided. This is why the disabled must become activists in their communities so officials are reminded of who needs to be protected.

Anytime that elevators are out is a scary time for the disabled. It is sad but not surprising that repair companies don’t care about a repair. These companies don’t seem to realize that they are trapping someone in their home until things are fixed. Until then they have to hope for people to bring them food and supplies. There is no reason for anyone to be held hostage in their home because a company doesn’t care what they are doing. We hope that the city can sue the elevator repair company to do their job and repair the elevator for good. This shows the able bodied that the disabled need help and without standard items like elevators, the disabled can be put into dangerous situations.

There must be laws in Canada that apartment dwellers can use to make the building owners fix their problems. This is a common problems in the US as well, but there is no reason to turn a building into a prison because the elevators are broken. The same goes for heat, air conditioning and any other item that is needed. Major US cities have laws in place to make building owners do the right thing, if this doesn’t exist in Canada then this is a good time for this woman to get on the phone to her parliament officials. Let them know what is going on and start working on a law to keep the disabled safe.