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Emergency Preparedness Ideas for People with Disabilities |
If you or a family member has a disability or special needs, be sure to review our recommendations for emergency preparedness for people with disabilities below. Special needs can include communication, hearing, mobility, mental and visual impairments along with other disabilities. Emergencies and disasters can strike quickly and without warning and can force you to evacuate your neighborhood or confine you to your home. Having a plan that addresses your situation and a survival kit will greatly reduce the chance of injury and the stress of dealing with a disaster.
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Contact local Emergency Services agency as many cities or counties may maintain a registry of people with disabilities in case of evacuation. If you are electric-dependent, be sure to register with your local utility company to minimize electrical outages.
Finally, for people with disabilities, it is important to be ready to evacuate when voluntary evacuation notices are given. If people with special needs wait until mandatory evacuations are ordered, you may get caught in the confusion and heavy traffic (foot and vehicle) that sometimes accompanies evacuations and the assistance you need to move to a safer locale may be delayed. |
Take the following steps if you or a family member has special needs or disabilties:
- Create a network of people including neighbors, relatives, friends, and co-workers that understand the special needs or disabilities of you or your family members(s). Make sure everyone knows how to operate necessary equipment.
- Discuss your special needs with your employer. If you are mobility impaired and live or work in a high-rise building, discuss with your employer escape routes.
- If you live in an apartment building or condominium, ask the management to mark accessible exits clearly and to make arrangements to help you leave the building.
- Keep specialized items ready, including extra wheelchair batteries, oxygen, catheters, medication, food for service animals, and any other items you might need.
- Be sure to make provisions for medications that require refrigeration.
- Maintain a list of the type and model numbers of the medical devices that are required
- Know the size and weight of your wheelchair, in addition to whether or not it is collapsible, in case it has to be transported
Decide what you will be able to do for yourself and what assistance you may need from other people before, during and after a disaster. This will be based on the environment after the disaster, your capabilities and your limitations.
For someone that is communication impaired:
- Determine how you will communicate with emergency personnel if you do not have your communication devices.
- Store paper, writing materials, copies of a word or letter board and pre-printed key phrases specific to anticipated emergencies in all your emergency kits, your wallet, purse, etc.
For someone that is hearing impaired:
- Store extra batteries for hearing aids, implants TTY and light phone signaler.
- Store hearing aids in a consistent, convenient and secure place, so you can quickly and easily locate them after a disaster. Consider storing them in a container attached to your night stand or bed post. Missing or damaged hearing aids will be difficult to replace or fix following a major disaster. If available, keep an extra hearing aid with your emergency supplies.
- Determine how you will communicate with emergency personnel if there is no interpreter or if you do not have your hearing aid(s). Store paper and pens.
- Consider carrying a pre-printed copy of key phrases, such as "I speak American Sign Language (ASL) and need an ASL interpreter." Determine which broadcasting systems will provide continuous news that will be captioned and/or signed.
For someone that is mobility impaired:
- Store emergency supplies in a pack or backpack that can attach to your walker, wheelchair or scooter. Store needed mobility aids (canes, crutches, walkers, wheelchairs) close to you in a consistent, convenient and secured location. Keep extra aids in several locations, if available.
- Keep a pair of heavy gloves in your supply kit to use while wheeling or making your way over glass and debris.
- If you do not have puncture-proof tires, keep a patch kit or can of "seal-in-air" to repair flat tires and/or keep an extra supply of inner tubes.
- Store a lightweight, manual wheelchair if available.
For someone that is mentally impaired:
- It is critical that you have a support group of people including family, friends or neighbors that can assist you with a mental impairment during an emergency or evacuation.
- Never let such an individual remain alone at any time during a tramatic event such as an emergency, as they may try to help others or hide and get lost. Even a brief distraction in a crowd can cause you to lose such a person.
- For elderly people with dementia or Alzheimer's, consider buying a tracking device to ensure you can locate them should they get lost in an emergency. Depending upon their level of independence this is also a good idea to prevent inadvertent wandering and resulting missing persons on a daily basis.
For someone that is visually impaired:
- If you use a cane, keep extras in strategic, consistent and secured locations at work, home, school, volunteer sites, etc. to help you maneuver around obstacles and hazards.
- Keep a spare cane in your emergency kit.
- If you have some vision, place security lights in each room to light paths of travel. These lights plug into electrical wall outlets and light up automatically if there is a loss of power. They will, depending on type, continue to operate for 1 to 6 hours and can be turned off manually to be used as a flashlight.
- Store high-powered flashlights (with wide beams) and extra batteries.
- Plan on losing the auditory clues you normally rely on following a major disaster.
Service Animals and Pets
- Make sure your service animals and pets have I.D. tags with both your cell phone number and that of your primary out-of-town contact person. Make sure your animal's license is current.
- Plan how your pets will be cared for if you have to evacuate. Although service animals should be allowed in emergency shelters, pets may not be, so have some animal shelters identified.
- Establish relationships with other animal owners in your neighborhood so in case you are not home, someone will be able to help your animal.
- Pets and service animals may become confused, panicked, frightened or disoriented during and after a disaster. Keep them confined or securely leashed or harnessed. A leash (or harness) is an important item for managing a nervous or upset animal. Be prepared to use alternative ways to negotiate your environment.
- Assemble a survival kit for your service animal that will last seven days. Place it in a pack that your animal can carry (if it is large enough to do so) in case you need to evacuate. See the GetReadyGear pet-animal emergency planning page for tips on how to assemble a emergency survival kit for your service animal or pet.
For additional emergency preparedness information follow this link to order the "Are You Ready?" book from FEMA. |
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