ADA Best Practices Tool Kit for State and Local Governments

I. Steps to Ensure Access for All in Emergencies and Disasters

Here are some steps you can take now to ensure that emergency management programs, services, and activities are accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities.

• Advance Planning: On an on-going basis, seek and use input from people with different types of disabilities (i.e., mobility, vision, hearing, cognitive, psychiatric, and other disabilities) regarding all phases of your emergency management plan, including: 

  • preparation;

  • notification;

  • evacuation and transportation;

  • sheltering;

  • first aid and medical services;

  • temporary lodging and housing;

  • transition back to the community;

  • clean up; and

  • other emergency- and disaster-related programs, services, and activities. 

• Voluntary Registry: Create voluntary, confidential registries of persons with disabilities who may need individualized evacuation assistance, transportation, and/or notification. Establish procedures to ensure the registry’s voluntariness, guarantee confidentiality controls, and develop a process to update the registry when needed. Publicize the availability of the registry. 

• Notification: If you use emergency warning systems such as sirens or other audible alerts, provide ways to provide people who are deaf or hard of hearing prompt notice of an impending disaster. Combine visual and audible alerts to reach a greater audience than either method would by itself. Consider using telephone calls, auto-dialed TTY (teletypewriter) messages, text messaging, emails, and even direct door-to-door contact with pre-registered individuals. Also, consider using open captioning on local TV stations, and dispatching qualified sign language interpreters to assist in broadcasting emergency information provided to the public. 

• Ensure Access for People with Disabilities Who Use Service Animals: Modify “no pets” policies to enable people with disabilities to evacuate, use emergency transportation, stay in shelters, and participate in all emergency- and disaster-related programs together with their service animals. Teach first responders and the employees, volunteers, and third parties who perform emergency- and disaster-related functions that people with disabilities should not be separated from their service animals even in places where pets are typically not allowed. Only two questions may be asked to determine if an animal is a service animal: (1) Is this animal a service animal required because of a disability? (2) What tasks or work has this animal been trained to perform? If the answers to these questions reveal that an animal has been trained to provide assistance to a person with a disability, that person should be able to access services, programs, activities, and facilities while accompanied by his service animal. Service animals do not require certification, identification cards or licenses, special equipment, or professional training. 

• Evacuation and Return Home: Adopt policies to ensure that your community evacuation and recovery plans enable people with disabilities, including those who have mobility, vision, hearing, cognitive, and psychiatric disabilities to safely self-evacuate, to be evacuated by others, and to return home. 

• Transportation: Some people with disabilities will need accessible transportation. Identify accessible modes of transportation, such as wheelchair lift-equipped school buses, transit buses, paratransit vehicles, and taxis that will be available to evacuate people with disabilities during an emergency. Ensure that transportation plans address people with disabilities’ needs to transport mobility aids, such as wheelchairs or scooters, oxygen tanks or other medical equipment, and service animals. 

• Shelters – Policies: Review your sheltering program to ensure that rules, policies, and procedures comply with ADA requirements. Use the Department of Justice’s technical assistance publication, “The ADA and Emergency Shelters: Access for All in Emergencies and Disasters, ” which is located in Addendum 2 to this Chapter and at www.ada.gov/pcatoolkit/chap7shelterprog.htm All shelter operators need to know the ADA requirements discussed in this Chapter, including the Addenda. If your sheltering program is operated through any third parties, provide them with a copy of these materials. 

• Shelters – Physical Accessibility: Survey your community’s current shelters for barriers to access for persons with disabilities. Use the Department of Justice’s “ADA Checklist for Emergency Shelters,” which is located in Addendum 3 to this Chapter, and at www.ada.gov/pcatoolkit/chap7shelterchk.htm

  • If you find barriers to access, remove the barriers or work with the facility’s owner to remove them. 

  • If barriers remain, find another nearby facility that is or can be made accessible. In identifying new or alternative shelter locations, use the preliminary survey tool which will help you determine if a facility is a good candidate for a potential emergency shelter. 

  • Until all emergency shelters have accessible parking, exterior routes, entrances, interior routes to the shelter area, sleeping and recreational areas, dining facilities, and toilet/bathing rooms, identify and widely publicize to the public, including persons with disabilities and organizations with expertise on disability issues, the locations of the most accessible emergency shelters and the accessible features they provide. 

  • Adopt procedures to ensure that shelter staff and volunteers maintain accessible routes and minimize protruding objects. 

• Social Services and Other Benefit Programs: Review your social service and other emergency- and disaster-related programs, services, and activities to ensure that people with disabilities have an equal opportunity to apply for and benefit from them. 

  • Ensure that eligibility criteria do not unnecessarily screen out or tend to screen out people with disabilities – e.g., requiring a driver’s licence excludes people who, because of their disability, cannot drive; requiring a telephone number excludes many people who are deaf or have a speech disability.

  • Ensure that architectural barriers do not deny access to people with mobility disabilities. 

  • Ensure that communication barriers do not deny access to people with disabilities. Establish policies and procedures to provide the auxiliary aids and services needed to communicate effectively with people with disabilities, giving primary consideration to the auxiliary aids and services requested by an individual with a disability. 

  • Provide training so that employees and volunteers who staff these programs understand their ADA obligation to provide effective communication and make reasonable modifications to policies, practices, and procedures when necessary to avoid discrimination against people with disabilities. 

• Incident Management: During emergencies and disasters, first responders, emergency transportation drivers, and shelter staff often have questions about how to handle issues that arise. When these issues involve people with disabilities, ADA obligations are often implicated. Consider appointing one or more persons knowledgeable on ADA requirements and disability issues (ADA Incident Managers) who will be on-call throughout emergencies and disasters to provide quick guidance on issues that may involve the ADA and/or a person with a disability. 

• Recovery: During disasters, government facilities can be damaged or destroyed. When altering or rebuilding after a disaster, ensure that alterations to facilities and the design and construction of new or replacement facilities comply with all applicable federal accessibility requirements.