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Last year was the eighth consecutive year the United States had 10 or more severe weather events, known as ‘billion-dollar disaster events’ due to the amount of damage they cause. Devastating storms, droughts, heat waves, floods, and other natural disasters are linked to rising global temperatures and unfortunately have become part of a new normal.
Disasters pose an additional threat for people with disabilities, who are often left out of disaster planning, communication and response.
Advocates for people with disabilities agree that improved communication, specialized training of emergency responders, and easier access to resources can improve outcomes for people with disabilities during and after natural disasters.
“We need to do a lot of work before the bad day happens,” said Sadie Martinez, access and functional needs coordinator in the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
Martinez supports state agencies and local jurisdictions in the development of inclusive emergency operations plans that account for people with access and functional needs such as people with disabilities and older adults.
Martinez uses a whole-community approach to emergency planning called CMIST (Communication, Maintaining Health and Medical Needs, Independence, Support Services and Safety and Transportation). CMIST is a framework for identifying the functional needs of people with disabilities or who have access and functional needs before, during, and after a disaster. It is used by emergency managers, responders and public health practitioners to address a broad set of common access and functional needs without having to define a specific diagnosis or status. It is considered a key part of inclusive disaster planning and response.
Martinez said CMIST shifts the conversation away from disability status and toward addressing resource disruptions and needs people with disabilities may have during a disaster.
CMIST is currently being used in 64 counties in Colorado. Before CMIST, communication and coordination that considered people with disabilities was problematic. She points to the Waldo Canyon Fire which burned 18,247 acres in 2012. Residents with disabilities faced barriers to evacuation and interruption of their support services, in part due to poor communication by disaster officials. During the 32,000 evacuations, she said, emergency shelters were also set up that were inaccessible to wheelchair users. Officials were unaware of the problems until Colorado’s Center for Independent Living conducted a review of the emergency response through a disability lens. CMIST has greatly improved disaster planning and response, explained Martinez.
Sophia Kluessendorf, program manager for recovery for Illinois Red Cross, also uses the CMIST framework when providing services during a disaster. “Illinois Red Cross Disability Disaster Health Services and Disability volunteers use CMIST to help determine clients’ needs at shelters. This not only helps our clients but also helps our volunteers broadly address common access and functional needs without making a specific determination about an individual's health and/or needs,” she says.
“Our approach at the Red Cross is to make client-guided decisions. We let clients share their story and let us help determine what we can provide based on their expressed needs,” says Kluessendorf. “For example, we may have a client in a shelter with mobility issues, sensory sensitivities, or who requires a specific cot. These are all things that we can accommodate.”
“The biggest mistake we can make is not listening to the client or making decisions about a client's needs without including them in the process,” says Kluessendorf. “We share what services are available and work with the client to meet them where they’re at.”
Illinois Red Cross is also working to bring more people with disabilities into the disaster planning process. Kluessendorf says that Shirley Ryan AbilityLab has been instrumental in those efforts, including getting the word out that Illinois Red Cross is looking for a volunteer to oversee disability integration activities. “This individual would serve as an advocate for the access and functional needs community,” says Kluessendorf. “In times of active disaster, they may consult our shelters or how we can be more inclusive in our disaster response.”
“Shirley Ryan Ability Lab is an incredible organization with its innovative, patient-first spirit,” says Kluessendorf. “We look forward to continuing the dialogue on access and functional needs and disability integration as part of our mission.”
Bryan Russell is the emergency management coordinator at Disability Rights Florida, a nonprofit organization that advocates for and protects the rights of for people with disabilities. And provides disability competency training for emergency medical services workers. It also manages a disaster hotline during storms to troubleshoot access issues.
Russell says the availability of appropriate emergency housing for residents with disabilities during disasters is a major challenge. In fact, the National Council on Disability reports that people with disabilities are at high risk of being institutionalized during and after natural disasters. General-population shelters are not guaranteed to have staff that can meet personal-care needs, and may not have generators to power electric wheelchairs, respirators, feeding tubes and other technology needed by people with disabilities, says Russell. He works with clients to find appropriate housing solutions so they are not placed in long-term care facilities and are able to continue living the lives they want in the community.
Russell says that more agencies and organizations are including people with disabilities in their emergency planning, but decades of systematic exclusion of people with disabilities from these conversations will take a long time to undo.
“There’s still a lack of understanding among many local and state agencies around the importance of including people with disabilities in planning and recovery after disasters,” says Russell. said. “But I’m here to help make sure we get it right.”