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Demand Our AccessLearn about your legal rights as a disabled person Author: Jonathan Simeone
This podcast educates people with disabilities about our legal rights and how to enforce them. Language: en-us Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Emergency Preparedness With Scenarios
Monday, 26 January, 2026
Disclaimer The information presented in any of the Demand Our Access podcast episodes, on the Demand Our Access website, or otherwise shared in conjunction with or through association with the Demand Our Access project is expressly not individual legal advice. Applying the law depends on the circumstances and events that comprise every situation. Since legal advice is fact-specific, nothing about the Demand Our Access project can provide an individual, a group of individuals, or any organization legal advice. Introduction In this episode, we will be discussing emergency preparedness for those of us with disabilities. Specifically, I will explain why emergency preparedness is the most important issue we could ever advocate for, review what state and local governments are required to do to ensure their emergency preparedness is accessible to and inclusive of those of us with disabilities. After the review, we will use scenarios to see how we can advocate with our state and local governments to work with them on making their emergency preparedness accessible to and inclusive of us. Questions and Comments I greatly appreciate your feedback. If you want to contact me about this episode, or about Demand Our Access in general, you can fill out the contact me form on the Demand Our Access website. If you prefer email, you can write me at Jonathan@DemandOurAccess.com. The Next Episode The next live episode of the Demand Our Access podcast will take place on Saturday, February seventh at two Eastern. I believe we will be continuing our look at emergency preparedness during that episode. We may even have a guest join us. I will keep you updated through the Demand Our Access website. Reviewing Accessible and Inclusive Emergency Preparedness Why This Really Matters Emergency preparedness is the most important issue we will advocate for with our state and local governments. Not being able to access web content matters. Not being able to apply for jobs matters. Not being able to enter buildings matters. Not having interpreters if you need them matters. Emergency preparedness is literally life or death. If we die in an emergency because our state and local government didn’t properly accommodate us, it won’t matter to us if a website is inaccessible, or if we can access a building. Since there are very few advocacy efforts addressing emergency preparedness, and because most state and local governments hardly comply with the ADA to begin with, the odds are extremely high that if a disaster took place in your community people with disabilities would die deaths that would have been preventable had your state and local government followed their legal requirements and ensured their emergency planning was accessible to and inclusive of those of us with disabilities. If we want to ensure we don’t die a preventable death when an emergency hits our communities, we must advocate with our governments for accessible and inclusive emergency planning and response. If you are one of those people who doesn’t believe government could or should have a role in your protection during an emergency, I want to ask you to consider what happens when an emergency requires you to evacuate your home and the government’s notice is inaccessible to you? What happens if you are required to evacuate but there is no accessible way for you to evacuate? What if you are required to evacuate to an inaccessible shelter? Issues like these and many more can and must be addressed by proper emergency preparedness on the part of our state and local governments. Introduction to Emergency Preparedness Six years ago I found two resources that have profoundly influenced my interest in emergency preparedness for people with disabilities. The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies released an after action report in May of 2018 detailing widespread governmental failure to properly plan for people with disabilities as a part of emergency preparedness. The report made numerous suggestions as to how emergency preparedness could be more inclusive of people with disabilities while illustrating how ineffective planning led to preventable death, injury, and illness. Appendix G of the after action report has a detailed discussion of the limitations of additional needs registries. Additional needs registries became somewhat popular among state and local governments in the 1990s as a reported way to ensure people with disabilities got assistance during emergencies. The report from The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies found too few people register, the registries do not guarantee help but planners count on them, knowing someone’s home and/or work address does not mean you know where they are in a disaster, and far better data is available. The Department of Homeland Security conducted several listening sessions on emergency preparedness and people with disabilities. The listening sessions also detailed widespread governmental failure at all levels to adequately plan to accommodate people with disabilities during disasters. Two sections of this episode will demonstrate what the Department of Justice (DOJ) requires of state and local governments under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (Title II) when comes to ensuring emergency preparedness planning is inclusive of those of us with disabilities. The next section will discuss emergency preparedness requirements in settlements DOJ has made with local governments under Project Civic Access. The subsequent section will discuss a guide issued by DOJ in October of 2008 to assist local governments in incorporating accessibility into their Emergency Action Plan (EAP). Project Civic Access and Emergencies The primary way DOJ enforces compliance with Title II is through Project Civic Access. To date, DOJ has reached more than 220 settlements with at least 206 cities, counties, and villages in all 50 states. Every settlement I have reviewed includes emergency preparedness. To demonstrate what DOJ typically requires of state and local governments when it comes to ensuring emergency plans are inclusive of people with disabilities, I will discuss the emergency preparedness requirements in the 2018 settlement between DOJ and the City and County of Denver, Colorado (Denver). I will paraphrase what Denver is required to do in its emergency operations plan its (EOP). If you are interested, the emergency preparedness provisions of the settlement are set forth in section h of the Remedial Actions section. Procedures to get input from people with disabilities on the EOP Community evacuation plans enabling people with disabilities to self-evacuate or be evacuated by others Procedures to effectively warn people who are deaf or hard of hearing of impending disasters Emergency shelters are required to have back-up generators and a way to keep medications refrigerated Procedures ensuring people are not separated from their service animals Information about temporary housing will notify people about accessible housing Denver has additional requirements related to physical changes to emergency shelters: If a shelter is subject to Title III (which covers places of public accommodation), the agreement does not reduce liability under Title III. Denver will notify shelter facilities subject to Title III that they have a year from the effective date of the agreement to remove barriers to access for people with disabilities. Within one year of the effective date of the agreement, an independent architect hired by Denver will survey the shelters for compliance. If all barriers are not removed within 18 months, Denver will identify alternate accessible shelters as confirmed by the independent architect. Within three months of the effective date of the agreement and until all shelters are accessible, Denver will widely publicize a list of accessible shelters. A Guide for Local Governments Note, there is a more modern resource on emergency preparedness published by DOJ on including people with disabilities in emergency operations plans under Title II called Emergency Planning. I am working off of the older document in this podcast because the subjects covered in both are very similar. Most of the differences between the two documents are more technical than I think we need to cover here. Still, I will link to the more modern DOJ document on emergency preparedness on the website so you can consider it too. I will say the newer document does link to a few more resources. So, there are good reasons for folks interested in inclusive emergency preparedness to look at both. In Making Community Emergency Preparedness and Response Programs Accessible to People with Disabilities, DOJ gives local governments more specific advice around creating accessible EOPS. The guide breaks its advice into seven categories: Notification – Warning methods should be developed to ensure all citizens have the information to make sound decisions and take appropriate, responsible actions. A combination of methods (audible and visual alerts) will reach the most people. Evacuation – Procedures should be in place to allow people with disabilities to evacuate with or without assistance. Whether or not a registry is used, plans should address accessible transportation needs for people with disabilities. Emergency transportation – Contract with entities possessing accessible vehicles to use them to transport people with disabilities during emergencies. Sheltering – Survey shelters for barriers to access. Until all shelters are accessible, publicize accessible shelter locations. Generally, people with disabilities cannot be segregated into separate shelters. Access to medication, refrigeration, and back-up power – Ensure a reasonable number of shelters have a way to keep medications refrigerated and back-up power. These shelters should be made available to people with disabilities needing these services first. Access to mobility devices and service animals while in transit and shelter – People with mobility devices should have access to the devices they need during transit and at shelters. That means government must be prepared to provide mobility devices and meet other needs in shelters. Access to information – Train shelter staff on providing basic effective communication. This includes reading printed material to someone with a disability that makes reading print difficult and exchanging notes with someone who has a speech and/or hearing disability. Pacific ADA Center The Pacific ADA Center (a member of the ADA National Network) has produced a lot of great resources on emergency preparedness and people with disabilities. Their page on state and local governments planning for inclusive emergency operations will be well worth your time if you want to learn more about what our local governments are supposed to do to better protect those of us with disabilities during emergencies. The Pacific ADA Center’s page of resources for individuals with disabilities during emergencies is a great place to start learning about how we as people with disabilities can plan to ensure we have better odds at coming through emergencies. Scenarios As a reminder, the scenarios we will work through are not to be considered advice you should strictly follow when you need to advocate. It is doubtful your situation will be an exact replica of any of the scenarios discussed here. So, you should learn tips you can apply to your own advocacy situation, but don’t think what is covered here is the exact way you should advocate. The Status of Planning How should you begin to figure out what your local government has done to include us in their emergency preparedness? Things to Consider What things should you be looking for in your state and local government’s emergency planning? Including us What is the initial way governments should include us in their emergency planning
