Emergency Planning for People with Disabilities and Access and Functional Needs (AFN)

Conduct an "Ability Self-A

ssessment"

Evaluate your capabilities, limitations and needs, as well as your surroundings to determine what type of help you will need in an emergency.

Will you be able to independently shut off the necessary utilities (gas, water, electricity)?

1. Do you know where shut-off valves are?
   1. Can you get to them?
   2. Can you find and use the right wrench to turn those handles?
2. Can you operate a fire extinguisher?
   1. Have you practiced?
   2. Will extended handles make these items usable for you?
3. Will you be able to carry your evacuation kit?
   1. What do you need to do to carry it?
   2. How much can you carry regularly?
   3. Do you have duplicates at other locations?
4. Have you moved or secured large objects that might block your escape path?
5. Write instructions for the following (keep a copy with you and share a copy with your personal support network):
   1. How to turn off utilities; color-code or label these for quick identification.
   2. Main gas valve, located next to the meter - blue; Electrical power circuit breaker box - red; and Main water valve – green.
   3. If you have a reduced or limited sense of smell, alert your personal support network to check gas leaks.
   4. How to operate and safely move your essential equipment. Consider attaching simple to read and understanding instructions to your equipment.
   5. How to safely transport you if you need to be carried and include any areas of vulnerability.
   6. How to provide personal assistance services.
      1. Remind anyone who assists you to practice strict cleanliness and keep fingers out of mouth. With limited water and increased health hazards, the possibility of infection increases. Keep a supply of latex gloves in your emergency supply kit and ask people assisting you with personal hygiene to use them.
      2. List all personal care assistance needs (dressing, bathing, etc.) with instructions on how best to assist you.
      3. Make a map of where to find medications, aids and supplies. Share with your personal support network.
6. How will you evacuate? Be aware of barriers and possible hazards to a clear path of exit. Change what you are able to change (clear obstacles from aisles; secure large, heavy items such as bookcases that may fall to block your path). Plan alternate exit paths.

Establish a personal support network

A personal support network is made up of individuals who will check with you in an emergency to ensure you are alright, and give your assistance, if needed. A support network may include family, friends, personal attendants, neighbors or co-workers. It’s best to have more than one person in your support network at every location where you spend significant amounts of time, such as your home and your place of employment. If you rely on a personal assistance service, this type of assistance may not be available after a disaster. Therefore, it is vital that your personal support network consists of different people than those who are your personal attendants.

Identify a minimum of three people at each location where you regularly spend a significant part of your week: job, home, school, volunteer site. Despite your best planning, sometimes a personal support network must be created on the spot. Make sure everyone in your support network knows your emergency plans. This includes methods of contact, evacuation routes and location of emergency supplies. If you use medical equipment, show support network members how to operate it.

Plan and Practice with Your Support Network

• Make extra copies of your house keys, car keys, and any keys for storage sheds or closets, and share them with your support network so they can reach you during an emergency.
• Show them where you keep your emergency supplies.
• Share copies of important documents like your emergency plan, evacuation instructions, and any health information they may need.
• Decide how you will contact each other during an emergency and practice your communications plan. Remember that phone lines may not work.
• Let each other know whenever you leave town and when you return.

What to Expect at an Emergency Shelter?

Emergency shelters are safe places for everyone. People with access and functional needs can expect support for communication, health, mobility, and daily routines. Shelters may offer accessible entrances, rest areas, power for medical devices, space for service animals, and staff who can help connect you with the right resources.

When you arrive, try to bring any important items you use every day, such as:

• Medications and medical equipment
• Mobility aids or assistive devices
• Service animal supplies
• Important documents and identification

Let shelter workers know about any specific needs you have like help charging medical equipment, keeping medications cool, getting information in another format, or staying with a caregiver or service animal.

The goal is to make sure everyone feels safe, comfortable, and supported during an emergency.

Keep Your Health Card Handy

An emergency health information card:

• Communicates to rescuers what they need to know about you if they find you unconscious or incoherent, or if they need to quickly help evacuate you.
• Should contain information about medications, equipment you use, allergies and sensitivities, communication difficulties you may have, preferred treatment, treatment-medical providers, and important contact people.
• Make multiple copies of this card to keep in emergency supply kits, car, work, wallet, and wheelchair pack.

Emergency Contact List

Ask several relatives or friends who live outside your immediate area to be your emergency contact for information about you and your family. It is often easier to place an out-of-area or long distance call from a disaster area, than to call within the area. Texting is also recommended during disasters instead of calling.

All family members should know to call the contact person to report their location and condition. Once contact is made, have the contact person relay messages to your other friends and relatives outside the disaster area. This will help to reduce calling into and out of the affected area once the phones are working.

Besides emergency out-of-area contacts, list should include personal support network, equipment vendors, doctors, utility companies, employers, schools, day care centers, or other family or household members.

Emergency documents

These documents contain important information that may be needed after a disaster. Copies of critical details such as specifications for adaptive equipment, medical devices, and medication lists should be included in all your emergency kits. Medication information should also be listed on your health card.

Other important records such as family documents, wills, deeds, social security numbers, family photos, and charge or bank account information should be kept together with your home emergency supply kits. Store these in sealed freezer bags to protect them from water damage and consider sending copies to an out-of-state contact for safekeeping.

Additional tip sheets that cover these topics in more detail are available at www.ready.gov.

Self Advocate

Take charge and practice how to quickly explain to people how to move your mobility aids or how to move you safely and rapidly. Be prepared to request reasonable accommodation from disaster personnel. For example, if you are unable to wait in long lines for extended periods of time, for such items as water, food, and disaster relief applications, practice clearly and concisely explaining why you cannot wait in the line. Be prepared to give clear, specific and concise instructions and directions to rescue personnel.

Say:

• "Take my oxygen tank."
• "Take my wheelchair."
• "Take my gamma globulin from the freezer."
• "Take my insulin from the refrigerator."
• "Take my communication device from under the bed."

Practice giving these instructions with the least number of words in the least amount of time.

Disability-Related Supplies for Emergency Kits

Store supplies in areas you anticipate will be easy to reach after an emergency. Others may be able to share traditional emergency supplies, but you need these stores on top and in separate labeled bag. If you have to leave something behind, make sure you get these.

If you have a respiratory, cardiac or multiple chemical sensitivities condition, store towels, masks, industrial respirators or other supplies you can use to filter your air supply. In an emergency supplies will be limited.

Supplies to keep with you at all times

Packing/Container suggestions:

• A fanny pack, backpack or drawstring bag which can be hung from a wheelchair, scooter or other assistive device.
• Emergency Health Information Card.
• Communication Card
• Instructions on personal assistance needs and how best to provide them.
• Copy of Emergency Documents.
• Essential medications/copies of prescriptions (at least a week's supply).
• Flashlight on key ring.
• Signaling device (whistle, beeper, bell, screecher).
• Small battery-operated radio and extra batteries.

Medications

It is best if you are able to maintain at least a 7 to 14-day supply of essential medications (heart, blood pressure, birth control, diabetic, etc.) and keep this supply with you at all times. If this is not possible, even maintaining a three-day supply would be extremely helpful.

Work with your doctor to obtain an extra supply of medications, as well as extra copies of prescriptions. Ask if it would be safe to go without one dosage periodically, until an adequate supply has been accumulated? Make several copies of your prescriptions and put one copy in each of your survival kits, car kit, wallet, with your emergency documents and your evacuation plan.

Ask your doctor or pharmacist about the shelf life and storage temperature sensitivities of your medication. Ask how often you should rotate stored medication to ensure that the effectiveness of the medication does not weaken due to excess storage time. If you are on medications which are administered to you by a clinic or hospital (such as methadone, or chemo or radiation therapy) ask your doctor how you should plan for a 3 - 14 day disruption.

• Keep medical alert tags or bracelets and written descriptions of your disability and support needs in case you are unable to describe the situation in an emergency.
  
• To prepare for a fire emergency, view the U.S. Fire Administration's general guide for people with disabilities.
• Make arrangements, prior to an emergency, for your support network to immediately check on you after a disaster and, if needed, offer assistance.
• Exchange important keys.
• Show where you keep emergency supplies.
• Share copies of your relevant emergency documents, evacuation plans and emergency health information card.
• Agree and practice a communications system regarding how to contact each other in an emergency. Do not count on the telephones working.
• You and your personal support network should always notify each other when you are going out of town and when you return.

Equipment and assistive devices

Keep important equipment and assistive devices in a consistent, convenient and secure place, so you can quickly and easily locate them. Make sure these items such as teeth, hearing aids, prosthesis, mobility aid, cane, crutches, walker, respirator, service animal harness, augmentative communication device or electronic communicator, artificial larynx, wheelchair, sanitary aids, batteries, eyeglasses, contacts including cleaning solutions, etc., are secured. For example: keep hearing aid, eyeglasses, etc., in a container by bedside which is attached to nightstand or bed post using string or Velcro, oxygen tank attached to the wall, wheelchair locked and close to bed. This helps prevent them from falling, flying or rolling away during a quake.

If you use a laptop computer as a means of communication, consider purchasing a power converter. A power converter allows most laptops (12 volts or less) to run from a cigarette lighter on the dashboard of a vehicle.

Ready.gov includes comprehensive suggestions for emergency planning.

Quick tips for specific access and functional needs

Deaf or Hard of Hearing

• Have a flashlight in each room of the house to facilitate lip-reading or signing in the dark.
• Keep a pen and paper handy in case you need to communicate with someone who does not understand American Sign Language.
• Write an explanation of your needs in advance. For example:
  • “I use American Sign Language, I have a hearing loss, and I need an interpreter. I need my (name of device)."

Blind or Low Vision

• If you use a mobility cane, keep an extra in any location where you regularly spend time.
• If you have a service animal, include your animal in any evacuation plans. Let first responders know there is a service animal in the home.

Difficulty Speaking or Understanding English

• Request for an interpreter.
• If you have a speech disability, consider carrying a laminated personal communication board. This could be one or several small cards containing written messages.

Limited Ability to Walk or Move

• If you use a motorized wheelchair, consider keeping a lightweight, manual chair available as a backup.
• If you use a mobility cane or walker, keep an extra in any location where you regularly spend time.
• Let first responders know the range of your mobility so they know how to help you.