Emergency Evacuation Planning Guide For People with Disabilities

Annex A THE ADA: A BEGINNING

The good news is that here in the United States we have developed building codes that have significantly reduced damage and injury to people and property. We have done so well with issues like fire sprinklers, rated construction, and structural stability that we have gone on to the next level and begun to address other issues that are equally important. Energy efficiency, protection of heritage buildings, and accessibility are examples of where we have taken codes beyond traditional requirements.

The bad news is that, while we have made a good start on “accessibility” in the past 55 years, we still have a long way to go. Why does it seem to take so much time and effort to write workable codes and standards for accessibility? What makes dealing with quality-of-life issues, particularly accessibility, so difficult? After all, the goal is simple — we want everyone to have the right to the same opportunities, a right that flows directly from our Constitution. So why are we having such a hard time reaching that goal?

What makes it so difficult is simply that each one of us is unique. We certainly have many general physical features in common, like eyes and ears and organs. But there are differences even in those areas, some small, some great. My eyes are blue, yours are brown, her vision is 20/20, he is blind — there are literally billions of combinations. It’s relatively easy to write code so that we’re all protected in buildings that won’t burn or won’t collapse during an earthquake. It’s much more difficult to make sure that everyone can use a building with equal facility. We now have computer software that can “read” word documents out loud to assist  people with visual impairments. We have voice-activated software that can “type” into a computer to assist people with limited use of their hands and fingers. Our goal in accessible code requirements for buildings is to provide that same kind of flexibility and to accommodate anyone and everyone who uses every building.

The first regulations for accessibility adopted in the late 1960s and early 1970s were successful and produced benefits for millions of people. Ramps, elevators, curb cuts, accessible toilets, and signage provided a new freedom for getting to, into, and around thousands of public facilities. Now we’ve learned that those adaptations are only a small part of the solution. We need to address audio and visual accessibility as well as mobility accessibility. What do people do once they’re inside a building? Where do they sit? How good is the quality of those seats? How well can people see and hear? How might they get out of the building in an emergency?

In 1990 Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which is generally considered the flagship piece of legislation on the subject of accessibility. In the act, the term disability means one of the following:

• A physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of a person

• A record of such an impairment

• Being regarded as having such an impairment

In developing the ADA, Congress listed the following profound findings:

Some 43,000,000 Americans have one or more physical or mental disabilities, and this number is increasing as the population grows older.

Historically, society has tended to isolate and segregate people with disabilities. Despite some improvements, discrimination against people with disabilities continues to be a serious and pervasive social problem.

Discrimination against people with disabilities persists in the critical areas of employment, housing, public accommodations, education, transportation, communication, recreation, institutionalization, health services, voting, and access to public services. Unlike people who experience discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, religion, or age, those of us who experience discrimination on the basis of disability often have no legal recourse to redress such discrimination.

People with disabilities continually encounter various forms of discrimination, including outright intentional exclusion; the discriminatory effects of architectural, transportation, and communication barriers; overprotective rules and policies; the effects of failure to make modifications to existing facilities and practices; exclusionary qualification standards and criteria; segregation; and relegation to lesser services, programs, activities, benefits, jobs, or other opportunities.

Census data, national polls, and other studies document that people with disabilities, as a group, occupy an inferior status in our society and are severely disadvantaged socially, vocationally, economically, and educationally. People with disabilities have been faced with restrictions and limitations, subjected to a history of purposeful unequal treatment, and relegated to a position of political powerlessness in our society, based on characteristics beyond their control and resulting from stereotypic assumptions not truly indicative of the their abilities to participate in and contribute to society.

The nation's proper goals regarding people with disabilities are to ensure equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for such people. Yet, the continuing existence of unfair and unnecessary discrimination and prejudice denies people with disabilities the opportunity to compete on an equal basis and to pursue those opportunities for which our free society is justifiably famous. This discrimination costs the United States billions of dollars in unnecessary expenses resulting from dependency and non-productivity.

Congress clearly stated its purposes in passing the ADA:

• To provide a clear and comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of discrimination against people with disabilities

• To provide clear, strong, consistent, and enforceable standards that address discrimination against people with disabilities

• To ensure that the federal government plays a central role in enforcing the standards established in the ADA on behalf of people with disabilities

• To invoke the sweep of congressional authority, including the power to enforce the 14th Amendment and to regulate commerce in order to address the major areas of discrimination that people with disabilities face daily

That clear and powerful message was sent to the American people over 15 years ago, but somehow we missed the point. Somehow we continue to miss the point. Right now, more than 43 million Americans have disabilities. The members of this group are constantly changing — at any moment, you and I could become part of this group for some period of time.

Disability is not about a specific group of people. Disability is about a specific time in the life of each and every one of us. For some it may be temporary, for others it may last much longer.

It’s about the fourth-grader who breaks her leg falling off the playground slide and the hockey player who crashes into the boards 15 seconds into his first college game and is paralyzed from the neck down.

It’s about the construction worker who’s nearly deaf from running a jackhammer and the person born with no arms.

It’s about the 30-year-old asthma sufferer and the 60-year-old office worker recuperating from bypass surgery.

It’s about each and every one of us at some point in our lives.

As a society, we have mistakenly adopted a mindset that divides us into two groups, “able bodied” and “disabled.” The fact is that we all will be part of the disabled community for some time in our lives. It is from that perspective that we need to think about and regulate our built environment and our programs. If we act from the perspective of what we would want when, rather than if, we become disabled, we truly will be able to make great progress for all people.