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.

While this sounds wonderful, it remains to see how much work the hospitals will put in place. The article did not say whether disabled people would be added to groups verifying that all areas of the hospital do indeed follow ADA guidelines. But these two hospitals are showing that the ADA is doing great work throughout the country in forcing all public buildigs to be fully accessible and that personnel must be trained to help the disabled. This training is going to be the real deciding factor that decides if the hospitals are serious about helping the disabled. From the bus drivers to the nursing staff, everyone has to realize that the disabled are not an alien life form and need help for basic life functions that the able bodied just take for granted. Either forgetting to help or just all out refusing can put the disabled person in a dangrous position that could seriously injure them.

Ongoing training and verification that existing fixes are appropriate and that new areas of the hospital reach ADA guidelines will be an important aspect of this promise. The management of the hospitals can’t just look at this as a way to get away from lawsuits, they should want to help their fellow man because it is the right things to do. Opening the area to the disabled will bring more business to the hospitals because more people can access facilities there. Companies that complain about being forced to make accessiblity changes may be surprised at the amount of aditional traiffic now that the disabled can actually get in and move around.

With more and more people becomikng disabled, it will be important for these hospitakls to be accessible.l Baby boomers are getting older and many will eventually in walkers or wheelchairs and they will not be impressed if the hospital down the street cannot open the doors for them. This is something for all businesses to think about, not only are there customers you are losing, but eventually those owners and managers will be in those wheelchairs that they don’t care about. Then the shoe will be on the other foot.

Under current law, when federal financial assistance is used to create new single family houses or town houses, only 5% are required to meet accessibility standards that allow individuals with physical disabilities to visit or live in these houses. The remaining 95 percent of government-assisted new homes can be built with unnecessary architectural barriers.  As a result, residents who acquire disabilities are forced to live in unsafe conditions, unable to use their bathrooms or exit their homes independently.nbsp; They may face high renovation costs or long waiting lists for public funds to finance modifications.  They may become socially isolated because barriers in their homes prevent visits from other friends and family members with disabilities.  Ultimately, they may be forced from their homes and into institutions because of this lack of basic accessibility in their housing. (Source: concretechange@yahoogroups.com)

HR 1408 addresses these dilemmas in a cost-effective and practical way.  While leaving in place the existing requirement for extensive access in 5%, IHDA provides for fewer but important accessible features in the remaining 95%. This would ensure that all housing built with taxpayer monies enables a person with a physical disability to enter a home and use the bathroom on the main level.  For homes built on a concrete slab, the cost is less than $100 and for homes with a basement or crawl space the cost is estimated at less than $600.

In a study published last year by the American Planning Association, researchers determined that, using different measures of disability, there was a 25 to 60 percent chance that a house built in 2000 would at sometime during its useful life contain a resident with a severe, long-term mobility impairment.[1] This nation is not building homes to meet the needs of its people.  HR 1408 will take considerable steps to correct that.  Please  support HR 1408.

_______________________

This is a big deal for all Americans, not just the disabled. While folks in wheelchairs and walkers want to be able to buy a house like everyone else that they can actually use, the elderly have the same issues. You may be able to use your home just fine now, but what about 20 years from now? Stairs and sunken dens will suddenly be areas of the house that you cannot enter. Lots of money and effort will need to be put in place to either remove these barriers or to change them into ramps. Rather than trying to figure out how we are all going to pay for these problems then, lets fix it now. There is no reason why stairs are necessary on the first floor to get into most houses and entryways must be wide enough to allow a wheelchair through. This added space will make it easier to move into the home and to bring in new furniture and appliances. This opens up neighborhoods to the disabled so that there are fewer empty homes in a neighborhood that could be used by criminals to destroy the area. Everyone wins when we do just a few things to make all homes accessible to the ever increasing number of disabled and elderly people. Things will not get better unless we do something about it. A democracy requires that we all participate which fortunately is easy to do. Calling your congressman or sending an email to one of your senators goes a long way to let them know what you are expecting from them. If we don’t let them know then we can expect things to continue along where the disabled cannot access over 95% of the new homes built everyday. It would be very sad if nothing was done about this when a fix is right in front of us.

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.

Obviously there are serious problems with how disabled people are treated by company employees. It is not this man’s fault that he is disabled or that he requires a powered chair to get around. He has the right to be anywhere that an able-bodied person is and should not have to worry about physical torture. Crashing carts into this man because he can’t get out of the way fast enough is truly disgusting. One wonders exactly the kind of people are hired by a ghoulish company and how they stay employed. If there was ever a group that needed anger management classes as well as classes on how to deal with people different than themselves, it is this group on the train. There is no excuse for this disabled man to dodge trays and eggs thrown at him as he moves from train car to train car. I seriously doubt that these employees would like to be treated as they treated this man on this trip.

This is also a good time to talk about getting an ADA type law in the UK. Disabled people have been on the bottom rung of society for too many years. Most of us had good paying jobs and paid our taxes until we were injured to the point that we could no longer work. At that point society has a responsibility to take care of their own, now just whoever is strong and beautiful today. That type of thought died out when the Nazis were defeated in 1945. Disabled people are just like anyone else, they just need equipment and help to move around from place to place. Most of us don’t want the able bodied help or pity — but we do want to be on the same level as everyone else. We should be able to get into buildings and homes without any special equipment. Taxis should be modified so they can take a wheelchair. The disabled as demanded to go back to work regardless of their injury, but society makes no attempt to help make that happen. Helping a disabled person get through a manual doorway not only helps them, it helps you to be a better person.

The City of Bolingbrook Illinois is a Visitability example often cited as a leader in the movement.

Since 2003, Bolingbrook has mandated ALL new houses to have zero-step entrances, wide interior doors and a few other access features.

Not only do we love Bolingbrook because they mandate ALL new houses, but they’ve been a helpful example because they build almost all houses with basements. (In the early days, disability advocates often were told, "Well yes you’ve been able to produce to lots of examples down south, where they rarely build houses with basements. But up north we can’t do it because we build mostly with basements. A zero-step entrance isn’t practical over basements—too difficult, too expensive. And the snow will blow in the door." For 6 years, Bolingbrook has contradicted these statements in practice, using inexpensive processes to create zero step entrances. And there have been no moisture problems.

Recently we noticed Bolingbrook features a Visitability section on their official city website. It offers a copy of the ordinance, a city map with colored areas showing the visitable neighborhoods, and a construction drawing showing one method builders can use to create the entrance.

To see the Visitability section, go to http://www.bolingbrook.com/index.php?page_id=10. (If that doesn’t lead you to the section, go to the Bolingbrook Illinois website, click "Village Info" and then click "Visitability Information.")

QUESTION: Of the several thousand permits issued since the Visitability law went into place, how many waivers exempting the zero-step entrance have been needed because of difficult site conditions? ANSWER: Only a handful. Less than 5%!

In fact, according to Lex Frieden, director of Independent Living Research Utilization, approximately 50 percent of the thousands of people who died as a result of Hurricane Katrina were either elderly or disabled. So when Laura George asked me to write an article on any topic related to emergency preparedness and special needs for the Spinal Cord Resources Network, I quickly agreed. While I’ve written a number of pieces on this subject, this opened ended assignment allowed me the opportunity to take a different approach to the issue of preparedness. I decided I would randomly poll my friends with disabilities, which range from mobility to vision to hearing impairments, to see just how prepared they actually are should a disaster strike.

It’s been exactly one week since I sent out an e-mail asking my friends if they have an emergency plan in place at home and/or at work. While only about half of them have responded, I’ve found some of their responses to be enlightening. For starters, more of them had a plan in place than I expected—at least at work, that is. In fact, one of my friends said she and her coworkers conduct drills three times a year to make sure everyone knows how to carryout their plan.

One gentleman, who uses a wheelchair, wrote that his office is very close to the entrance of the building, but his agency still has a basic plan in place. As part of this plan, he must always let someone know where he will be in the office and when he is leaving. In addition, they have a set meeting point outside when evacuation is necessary. Emergency supplies, like flashlights and first aid kits, are also kept in the office.

It was also encouraging to see that the youngest of the responders—a high school teenager with physical limitations—had a plan in place at home. Even more encouraging is that her plan is multifaceted to account for various types of disasters. For example, should a tornado come their way, her family has a designated meeting spot in the basement. They even have it in their plan to arrive at this point with their shoes and jackets on—if possible. However, she admits that her family’s plan does need work in some areas, although that’s partially because they just recently moved to a new neighborhood.

This brings up a good point—getting a proper plan in place doesn’t usually happen over night and often requires amendments as time goes on. Janet Shaw, of New Jersey, realizes that developing a suitable plan not only takes time and careful consideration, but that it can also cost a bit of money to acquire emergency supplies as necessary.

“We (follow) a great emergency management plan that tells you what to buy each week for 24 weeks so it is not so overwhelming. It’s called the Family Disaster Supplies Calendar, which is intended to help you prepare for disasters before they happen. Using the calendar, we can assemble an emergency kit in the small steps over a six-month period,” said Shaw, whose husband is recovering from a spinal cord injury.  

While a respectable number of my friends have plans in place (or are at least beginning to develop one), several of them do not have any plan for home or work and realize it’s something they need to address. For these individuals, Shaw suggests following the tips on the calendar she has, which is available free of charge through Mayes County Emergency Management (1-877-263-0280).

FEMA officials also released the following emergency tips to help seniors and people with disabilities prepare for disaster (www.fema.gov):

• Make prior arrangements with your physician or check with your oxygen supplier about emergency plans for those on respirators or other electric-powered medical equipment. Be sure to have electrical backup for any medical equipment.
• Maintain a two-week supply of medications, both prescription and non-prescription.
• Have copies of your medical records readily available.
• Have copies of prescriptions for medical equipment, supplies, and medications on-hand and readily available.
• Keep extra contact lenses and supplies, extra eyeglasses, and extra batteries for hearing aids on-hand.
• Make plans now to have accessible transportation in case of evacuation.
• Shelters may be limited in accommodations to meet some of the needs of those with disabilities. Prepare ahead of time to ensure that you will have what you need.
• Include your service animals and pets in your plans.

“Who best to plan but us? We know our own strengths and weaknesses; our own resources and networks. We have an obligation to ourselves and our families to be active participants in our own safety and not assume the role of ‘passive victim,’ especially when we would never dream of doing that in any other aspect of our lives,” says Elizabeth Davis, founder and managing director of EAD & Associates, LLC, an emergency management firm that focuses on populations with special needs.

And while Davis believes that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, it’s still important to plan for the worst case scenario should something happen to you. 

“I have all the legal paperwork for a medical power of attorney, and it is on file in my home, with the power of attorney, and at the local hospital as well as at the VA hospital,” said Buddy Hayes, who has multiple sclerosis and resides in New Mexico. “There are directions as to what needs to be done and when—like bills that need to be, who is to care for my service animal, etc.”

Hayes said she also specified what she wants done should she pass away. “It is all written down so no one has to wonder what Buddy would want—it is right there,” she said. “I would never want to put that burden on someone if they didn’t know what I wanted.”

For more information on life-saving emergency preparedness, visit www.eadassociates.com.