Emergency Evacuation Preparedness: Taking Responsibility For Your Safety A Guide For People with Disabilities and Other Activity Limitations

Never Assume You have been Included in Emergency Plans

Probably the least likely disaster to happen, happened on September 11^th, 2001.  The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, like other disasters have increased awareness worldwide of the need to be prepared for disasters and emergencies. While these events were unpredictable, lessons learned can be applied to a wide range of disasters.  People need to plan for emergency evacuation in anticipated and unanticipated situations including chemical, biological, radiological, explosion, transportation accidents, fires, floods, earthquakes, mud slides, hurricanes, tornadoes, snow storms power outages, etc.)

The attacks prompted many individuals responsible for people in office buildings to re‑evaluate their disaster and evacuation plans for all occupants, including taking a close look at how to get people with disabilities out safely. (iCan News Service 2001) These attacks, once again brought attention to the complex question that fire safety professionals and disability advocates have been wrestling with for years: How do people with mobility and sensory limitations quickly evacuate multi-story buildings during emergencies?

For people with disabilities, barrier free, as well as, barrier-ridden environments become a great deal more hostile and difficult to deal with during and after an emergency.  For example, people with physical disabilities may have reduced ability to get to accessible exits, as well as reduced access to their personal items and emergency supplies. People with vision and hearing loss and people with speech related disabilities often encounter many more communication barriers, especially when regular communication channels are down or overloaded.  These barriers appear at a time when rapid communication may be crucial to survival and safety.