‘Bare bones’: Disability rights advocates say city’s disaster plans fall short
30th September 2024 · 0 Comments
By Katie Jane Fernelius
Contributing Writer
(Veritenews.org) — When forecasters projected Hurricane Ida was going to hit New Orleans in August of 2021, Ashley Volion was not sure what she would do. Volion, who works as a policy analyst at Disability Rights Louisiana, has cerebral palsy and can’t walk. She uses a battery-powered wheelchair to get around and requires the care of personal attendants to help her with her daily needs.
As Ida barreled towards Louisiana, Volion had limited options: she was tight on money since payday had not yet hit, and she knew evacuation could be costly and require coordinating accessible transportation and accommodations. But she also knew the risks she would face if she stayed, especially if her home lost power.
“So when the power goes out during a hurricane, one of my biggest struggles is having power for my wheelchair,” Volion told Verite News. “Especially now since my chair is getting older, the batteries are going bad, so it needs to be charged every day.”
But there were other risks as well: Without power, Volion would lose air conditioning, a scary prospect since she’s especially vulnerable to heat-related illness.
It quickly became apparent that Volion couldn’t stay in her home, where she lived alone. But since she couldn’t afford to travel far, she decided to stay at a friend’s house in Metairie, where she knew she would at least have the support of another person.
Volion’s experience is a testament to the fact that marginalized communities, including people with disabilities, are at greater risk during city emergencies like hurricanes.
One in three adults in Louisiana report having a disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Disability can be a broad category but generally includes people who have functional impairments in mobility, cognition, hearing, vision, independent living and self-care.
According to a recent report by the National Council on Disability, people with disabilities are 2 to 4 times more likely to be injured or killed in a natural disaster compared to those without a disability. In an emergency, accessing resources can be more difficult, and the lack of them can be higher stakes for people with disabilities.
Lack of electricity after a storm might mean someone can’t power their wheelchair or critical medical equipment or refrigerate their medication. Without air conditioning, heat can be particularly dangerous for people with chronic medical conditions and the elderly. But citywide emergencies pose other risks. Supply chain issues can limit the availability of medication refills or oxygen tanks. Without reliable transportation, someone with mobility issues may not be able to access city shelters or resource centers.
In spite of these known risks, Volion and other disability advocates say that the city of New Orleans is failing to adequately prepare to support people with disabilities in its emergency preparedness plans.
They point to a trove of city records recently uncovered by Disability Law United, a national nonprofit legal organization focused on disability justice.
Last year, in an attempt to understand and document the resources the city of New Orleans makes available – for all residents and for disabled residents in particular – during and after an emergency, the group began filing public records requests seeking years of post-disaster reports, emergency plans and training protocols for assisting disabled residents.
After months of requests to the city failed to yield all the documents it sought, in July, the group successfully sued the city for access to the full and complete documentation of its emergency operation plans.
“The records contain information of vital importance to the city of New Orleans, and particularly the disabled community, as they reflect the Parish’s progress, or lack thereof, in climate and hazard mitigation, as well as plans to address evacuation, resource support and other services that should be part of advance planning for disasters,” reads an August filing in the suit, shortly after the city released the records in full.
The documents include emergency operation plans, including plans for city shelters and city-assisted evacuation, as well as after-action reports for recent city emergencies, including Hurricane Ida.
The planning documents do mention the importance of assisting people with disabilities, especially those who fall into the gap between having high medical needs and being part of the general population. But outside of nods towards organizing paratransit and potentially providing certain medical resources like oxygen tanks, there are few logistical details as to how the city plans to communicate and engage with the disability community in the city.
“The plans are bare-bones with regard to whether and how they’re going to assist disabled folks or not,” Kate Thorstad, a staff attorney at Disability Law United, told Verite News. “And there are seemingly no agreements or contracts to back anything up or make anything happen.”
In an email, Isis Casanova, a New Orleans Health Department spokesperson, noted that the city employs a disaster accessibility coordinator who “facilitates two-way communication with local community groups serving individuals with [access and functional needs], with the goal of identifying resource gaps and communicating pertinent emergency information in a variety of accessible formats.”
Casanova also said that the coordinator works to ensure the accessibility of resource centers and potential evacuation facilities.
But conversations with people within the disability community paint a different picture: one where people with disabilities rely on a web of health care, nonprofit, mutual aid and community groups to support them during city-wide emergencies, struggling to access public resources for transportation and electricity.
Several people interviewed by Verite were particularly concerned about the city’s move away from a special needs registry, which residents used to be able to sign up for, then speak with a Health Department employee to document their needs, develop an evacuation plan and guarantee city contact during any emergency.
Without the registry, people in the disability community say it is not clear to them whether the city will even be actively aware of people with disabilities during an emergency. They fear that the city won’t intervene to make sure that people with disabilities have access to critical resources during an emergency.
“A lot of the onus gets put on the people themselves and on community groups to help support those around us,” said Volion, who also serves on the Mayor’s Advisory Council for Citizens with Disabilities. “As New Orleans residents know, it is common knowledge that we can’t depend on the government, so we do depend on the community.”
‘I can’t get to one of those safety spots on my own’
A review by Verite News of the records uncovered by Disability Law United found that most plans do mention accommodation for people with mobility-related disabilities, noting that the Regional Transit Authority or a contractor (unnamed in the documents) will be delegated to provide paratransit or residential evacuation assistance in the event of an emergency.
An after-action report on Hurricane Ida identified that “persons requiring assistance in the days and weeks following Hurricane Ida were found to be much more likely than the general public to have significant mobility-related needs.”
That report also includes analysis that notes that a “substantial portion of those who needed shelter in New Orleans fell into a grey area” between the general population, who didn’t need extra assistance, and those who would be directed to a medical special needs shelter. The report further notes that many people didn’t meet the criteria for the medical special needs shelter, but did have “significant medical or mobility needs that they were unable to manage independently and were beyond the abilities of general population shelter staff.”
Asked for more detail on how the city accommodates people with additional needs, Casanova said it first sends emergency alerts in multiple forms – through written alerts, social media and across print, radio and television media – in order to reach people who may have visual or hearing loss. Both 311 and 911 dispatchers are equipped to direct callers to specific resources. Most shelters or resource centers are run through Recreation Department facilities and will be ADA-accessible, she said. The city also equips its shelters and emergency resource centers with communication boards and tools for remote American Sign Language interpreting.
For Thorstad, getting those plans into writing is not just important for emergency preparedness, but for officially involving the local community groups who often end up assisting people with disabilities anyway.
“Let’s get agreements in writing so that responsibilities and resources are clear, delegated and available,” Thorstad said.
Thorstad was particularly concerned about a lack of existing contracts and agreements to support the disabled community during a hurricane, especially if there is a citywide shelter-in-place directive, as there was during Hurricane Francine earlier this month. In an email, city officials confirmed those claims, saying that they do not have any formal contracts with any disability organizations and recommend that people first try to organize their own care and transport in the event of an emergency.
Casanova said that even if there are no listed contracts or partner organizations, the city is communicating regularly with disability advocacy groups.
“[The city’s emergency management department] also maintains strong relationships with disability advocacy groups in blue skies to ensure that partnerships are built prior to an emergency,” Casanova wrote in an email. “At present, we do not have any formal emergency contracts with any disability organizations.”
Messaging from the city during emergencies often emphasizes that residents should be prepared to take care of themselves during the 72 hours following a hurricane, but members of the disability community say that it is particularly concerning for those with pre-existing vulnerabilities that might put them at greater risk during an emergency.
Nicole Marquez, who has chronic medical needs and struggles with mobility, said that she would have a hard time reaching a city cooling center or distribution site after a disaster if her husband wasn’t with her.
“I can’t get to one of those safety spots on my own,” Marquez said. “I can’t drive, and I can barely walk.”
Representatives of local organizations that serve people with disabilities, such as Team Gleason and Lighthouse Louisiana, said that they often encourage people to prepare their own emergency plans for care and transport separate from what the city might provide.
Advocates note that given the diversity of needs among disabled residents, there may not be a one-size-fits-all solution to their needs in an emergency. However, multiple people who spoke to Verite said that it would be helpful if the city maintained a registry of people with disabilities and actively checked in on them in an emergency.
The city used to maintain a special needs registry but transitioned away from it at the end of 2021 as part of a grant program that prioritized universal design for emergency alerts and access to disaster resources. Instead, emergency managers adopted a system called Smart911, a digital application that any resident can sign up for. The application, intended to be accessible in its design, provides medical, mobility and household information to 911 dispatchers and emergency planners.
“In the event of a large-scale emergency, the city plans to use this information to communicate with individuals with identified high-risk medical needs,” Casanova said. But she also noted that the city chose not to use Smart911 to reach that population during the most recent hurricane. “During Hurricane Francine, the city broadcast public health and medical resources widely to all NOLA Ready communications [and] media channels rather than targeted messaging solely to Smart911 registrants.”
However, Casanova said that the city will prioritize communication in the event of an emergency.
“Open communication is maintained with individuals that may need additional support, such as those with medical needs or those who are energy-dependent, to ensure that they are able to access information and resources throughout the duration of the emergency,” she said.
But advocates for people with disabilities worry that without a registry, the city may not be able to account for those who may need extra help during an emergency. Marquez and Volion and other community members say that despite signing up for Smart911, the city has not proactively reached out to them about providing specialized support.
“You have to account for the community or else you’re not going to be able to meet their needs because you don’t know what they are, and you don’t know who they are or where they are,” Thorstad said.
Volion echoed her concerns, saying that if Smart911 worked better, she’d feel more comfortable with it. She found the sign-up process difficult and inaccessible.
“It is very complex, the amount of questions asked, so I don’t know how accessible it would be to all people with disabilities to be able to fill it out,” Volion said.
She would rather the city actively keep a registry and use that registry to check in on people during an emergency than require people with disabilities to have to sign themselves up.
“What it comes down to is that residents don’t even see city officials trying,” Volion said. “Like, if they would at least try, that would be one thing, but they’re not even trying at this point.”
This article originally published in the September 30, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
