I recently read an interesting article mentioning how people with disabilities were being left out of the evacuation process during emergencies. This interested me because normally you don’t expect emergencies to happen in the first place, but when they do everyone should have the opportunity to escape danger. This article written by Megan Tady talked about how a quadriplegic was left to die in the wake of hurricane Katrina in spite of her effort to contact emergency officials. This made me feel terrible knowing that this individual tried desperately to save herself but was unable to do so without the support of someone else. According to the article, 71 percent of the victims of hurricane Katrina were above the age of 60 and could not fend for themselves. This number could be drastically reduced if there was emergency preparations for all people, not just the abled-bodied.
Several disability and civil rights organizations took it upon themselves to bring this issue up to the government concerning these latest disasters. These groups are fighting for wheelchair accessible transportation, closed-captioned emergency messages, and appropriate housing after the disaster occurs. Many people with disabilities are left stranded in these emergency situations. Many go without their needed medications, or have their assistance devices removed from them. In these situations the government needs to take into consideration everyone’s needs during these tough times, not just those who can support themselves.
Many of these disability rights groups are looking into ways to make the evacuation process more affective for all involved. They have proposed that the government set up a disablility coordinator at the federal level, a coordinator assigned to every FEMA region in the country, and a designated official within each state that is held responsible for disablility planning. An efficient and well planned system like this would help save many lives in the future.
If you would like to read more about what these agencies are trying to implement and the problem that occurs yet to this day, you can find it at http://www.alternet.org/story/40443/?page=2