Good day ladies and gentlemen and thank you for standing by and welcome to being prepared inclusion people with disabilities in emergency planning. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. If you issued require operator assistance during the call you may press star and then 0 on your touch tone telephone. As a reminder today''s conference may be recorded. And now its my pleasure to turn the call over to Jessica Madrigal. Please go ahead.
Hello everyone and welcome to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) audio conference series. My name is Jessica and I will be serving as the moderator for today''s session. This program is brought to you by the ADA National Network. The ADA audio conference series is offered monthly and covers a variety of topics related to the ADA Today''s session is titled being prepared, inclusion of people with disabilities in emergency planning. And we are privileged to be joined by our presenter, Jessica Mitchell from FEMA. I will introduce her shortly. Individuals are joining us today using a variety of mediums. Including telephone, streaming audio on the Internet and real time captioning. Individuals may also view today''s PowerPoint presentation online and you can refer to the instructions that you received via e-mail to access that. As always, a written transcript of the session will be created edited and posted to our website, www.ada-audio.org, along with a digital recording of the session within ten business days following the conclusion of today''s session. Today our presenter will provide us with some valuable information and at the conclusion of her presentation there will be an opportunity for everyone to ask questions. At that time the operator and I will provide instructions as soon as we are ready to take those questions depending on the number of questions we get today we may not be able to address your issues and concerns. We encourage you to call the regional ADA center via telephone 800-949-4232. Before we begin today''s session I would like to go over some brief tips for our participants who are using the webinar platform. If you need to use closed captioning, you can click on the CC icon. That''s at the top of your screen. It is a blue button with white text or you can press control + F8 and that will adjust the captioning screen as needed for you under your own control. If you want to customize the view of your screen, you can choose view from the menu bar at the top and then you can choose the layout you prefer from the dropdown menu. You can customize your view of the webinar room to your liking. As for sound if you are using the webinar platform, you can check or adjust your sound settings under tools on the menu bar at the top of the screen and then choose audio from the dropdown menu and then go through the audio wizard. Now on to questions, we will be taking questions from you today. Very important part of our webinar program and our audio conference program is to get your questions. Two ways to submit questions today: For the people that are using the telephone, when we are ready to take questions we will cue the operator who will be there with us today and the operator will give you instructions on how to use your touch tone phone to ask questions. For individuals who are using the webinar platform you can submit your questions at any time in the chat area text box that you see on your screen. For those of you using a keypad it will be control + M on your keyboard to access the chat area. You will not be able to see the questions as being submitted but I''ll assure you I am monitoring them and keeping track. We ask that you refrain from using the emotions unless asked by the presenter. Now without further ado I would like to introduce Jessica Mitchell from FEMA. As many of you know, FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. As the Regional 5, disability integration and coordination and ensuring that the access and functional needs of people with disabilities are included in all aspects of disaster planning response and recovery. She served on the AMERCO St. Louis emergency response team for two years where they led operational activities on federally declared disaster. I would like to thank her for joining us today and I turn the session over to her.
Thank you. And I thank everybody at the Great Lakes ADA center for your interest in this topic and for getting me involved in this webinar presentation and a big thanks to all of you who are on the webinar platform on line and on the phone and I appreciate you taking time out of your day. I think we will have a great conversation today. I will take some questions at the end. So if you can write down or try to remember your questions I would love to take those. I would also like to note that I forgot to put my contact information on the slide deck. So I will be giving my contact information out at the end as well and if I forget to do that, if someone could please remind me I would appreciate it. What I am going to talk about today, the title is being prepared including people with dis-Abs in emergency planning. We are going to talk about things we would need to think about throughout the stages of a disaster. Preparedness before a disaster and getting an idea of what could happen in your area and planning before disaster; the response to a disaster which would be that immediate or the immediate phase when a disaster happens or directly following that disaster and then the long-term recovery which is a little bit later after the disaster when the community is trying to get back to normal operations. I will be talking to two or three different audiences during the presentations. One is I want to address concerns that individuals with disabilities might have themselves with how to be prepared for disasters. I also want to make sure that I talk to agencies that serve people with disabilities about how they can be more prepared and about how they can participate in the disaster and emergency planning process as well as how individuals with disabilities themselves can participate in the disaster and emergency planning process. And I also want to talk some to emergency managers that might be on the phone as well about how they can make their programs more inclusive to people with disabilities. Our first slide has a quote that says preparation through education is much less costly than learning through tragedy and that''s a quote from Max Mayfield who is the director of the national hurricane center. Our goal is to get individuals and agencies thinking about these issues in advance and thinking about the all of the various specific things that we need to think about to make sure that our plans are inclusive of people with disabilities, our responses to emergencies are inclusive of people with disabilities and that individuals are able to have the tools and access the tools and knowledge that they will need to make sure that themselves and their families are prepared in advance. We don''t want to have to learn through lessons learned from a disaster that did not go well. But we do look at past events that can highlight some of those lessons learned. And can highlight the importance of advanced planning. We all remember September 11, 2001. Obviously what happened on that day was a very tragic day. But there are some specific best practices that came out of that event and there are some specific lessons learned that came out of that event as well. So one best practice was in the World Trade Center there was an organization that employed mostly people who were blind or had low vision. And they had seen a need in advance for an evacuation plan. So they had planned out their evacuation plan: how they would get their employees and visitors to their agency out of the building in cases of evacuation. They had practiced the plan and they had input from their employees and from other people with disabilities and on September 11, 2001 they were all able to evacuate that building safely. There are other stories of people who use evacuation chairs, people who used wheelchairs who worked in the higher floors of the building and got out of the building safely and quickly. Unfortunately there are also stories of people who did not have access to an evacuation chair or people -- the people around them may not have known how to use it or they might not have known how to use the evacuation chair. We will talk about agency planning and training and practicing that plan as well a little bit later in the presentation. That''s one lesson learned that came out of that. Another lessoned learn that came out of the September 11th was shortly after the disaster, the area around the World Trade Center was closed off for security reasons and the only people that could get in to the area were first responders or people who lived in the area. That became very important when people with disabilities who lived in the area and who used in home support services or personal cares assistance services, and those individuals that came in to provide those supports to them in their home were no longer able to get in the area. So those are a couple of different things that we need to think about in emergency planning with people with disabilities that we learned from 9/11. The president also signed as a result of 9/11 an executive order 13347 which just stated that we need to focus more on planning with and for people with disabilities during emergencies before, during and after. And so it said that FEMA needed to work with the emergency management agencies to make sure that they understood the issues that people with disabilities might face in an emergency situation and provide technical assistance to help them navigate some of those barriers and also encouraged emergency managers to work with organizations that serve people with disabilities, service advocacies, and with people with disabilities themselves to make sure that plans are as inclusive as they can be. In September or August and September of 2005 after Hurricane Katrina, there were a lot of lessons learned from that event as well. A lot of them centered around sheltering and how people with disabilities are able to maintain their independence in shelters: How they are going to get access to backup durable medical equipment and how people are going to get access to medication, communication devices, assistive technology, to interpreters and how organizations running the shelters would be able to get all of that equipment and all of those support services so that the people with disabilities in those shelters were able to maintain their typical level of independence. From Hurricane Katrina came the post Katrina emergency management reform act. That''s PKEMRA. We really like our acronyms in the federal government. And that act provided a lot of changes for FEMA. It changed where we were structured within the federal government but it also specifically required FEMA to appoint a disability coordinator. And again it re-enforced the need for us to do more advanced planning, more technical assistance and more specific planning with people with disabilities. Recently, unfortunately, we have had a number of tornados and severe weather going through the area. And some of the lessons learned that have come out of those are not only communication which we will talk about later in the webinar, how people with disabilities will access alerts and warnings and get other emergency information that they need to keep themselves and their families safe to safe rooms and how accessible safe rooms and safe areas are for people with disabilities. Flooding and blizzard disasters in the recent past have shown that we need to focus on access to support services when people are sheltering in place. During a flood or a blizzard, receive the supports and services that they are going to need to maintain their independence during the time that they are sheltering in place. So that''s just a little background and a couple of things to think about to kind of get an idea in your mind of what types of things to think about when we think about emergency planning for people with disabilities. I mentioned that -- in 2010 established the office of disability integration and coordination within the headquarters office of FEMA. And between 2010 and early 2011 the ten FEMA regions recruited and hired regional disabilities integration specialists to make sure on a regional level you were being as inclusive as possible. For the last two years and keep an eye out for information about our conference coming up this year as well, we have put on getting real inclusive agency management conferences to bring managers from all level be it the federal regional state or local level with the disabilities and agencies that serves people with disabilities, the protection and advocacy agencies and centers for independent living. Our last conference focused on specific practices being addressed across the country. If you do a Google search you can find both of those webinars -- both of those conferences on line. There are webinars for each breakout session or topic session. You can go and look and watch the different presentations. That''s especially helpful with the last conference that we had on promising practice. You can choose the promising practice presentation and watch that again. You can get to those webinars through Google or you can get to them through the office of disability integration and coordination website. Beginning in 2011 soon after the regional disability integration specialists were hired, we started being deployed to different presidentially declared disasters across the nation. At this time we have each of the ten regional disability integration specialists together have supported over 30 federal disasters, federally declared disasters in the nation. And that''s just in about the last year or so. So I feel like that''s a really big step, people have been very open about including us in those activities. And I think that a lot of good has come out of that. There is a lot more awareness on the FEMA side. We are making sure that our materials, our information and our programs are as accessible as they can be. And also providing again that technical assistance to state emergency managers and trying to make those connections between the emergency management community and the disability community. FEMA in 2010 signed agreements with the national disability rights network -- this is just an agreement that says during times of disaster we will work together. When preparing for a disaster one of the first things that we think of is how the people get the information and tools to be able to prepare themselves and their families. So we want people to know what types of disasters are most common in their area; what the response is to those disasters; how they will get alerts and warnings that a disaster is happening and how they will get other emergency information like the locations of shelters or the locations of different emergency services. So we want to make sure that the information that we are putting out on the emergency management end is accessible to people with disabilities. And as we all know that includes using plain language, having information in alternate formats. And that can include Braille, American Sign Language, large print, audio formats, and digital formats. Making sure people can access the information with different senses and we also know that we need to put out the information in other languages and to use pictures where relevant and help enhance everyone''s understanding of the information. And we want to make sure that we are giving people relevant preparedness content. So information that you can actually use information that applies to you. So what do I do if I take medication and I am having to shelter and place in home and my medication is running out. Thinking about those types of issues and getting people that information in advance. There are a number of preparedness resources for individuals online. I put a few of them here. But when I give my contact information out later I can also provide people with a list of other additional resources if they are interested. And Jessica I guess I can also send that to you if people call the ADA center asking questions about resources. Make sure that everyone has access to that. One important resource is ready.gov and that''s a website that individuals businesses, community organizations can all go to to get preparedness information. You can learn about different types of disasters. You can learn about different areas, how to prepare for people with functional and access needs. That might be a term that I need to explain a little bit, FEMA is trying to get away from the term special needs. There are a lot of people in the community who disabilities other functional needs and we need to make sure that is an integral part of our planning process. That it is not something extra or special. So we have been using the term functional needs to describe not only anyone with disabilities but anyone who would need assistance during any phase of a disaster. Whether it is someone who speaks another language, whether someone who doesn''t have access to transportation, may need assistance during evacuation, whether it is someone who is older and would have trouble getting off of, you know, one of the shelter cots because they are very low to the ground there. They are very hard for anyone to get out of. So it includes not only people with disabilities but everyone who might have additional needs during a disaster. So there are specific information on ready.gov for all of those populations for the different types of disasters, specific information for businesses on how to create an emergency plan for your business. And there is also a place where you can order bulk materials online. There is a specific preparedness brochure targeted towards individuals with functional needs. There are lots of other brochures as well, general brochures, information for businesses, Et cetera. That you can actually order copies of those for free. So if you have a preparedness event that you are going to or if you are an part of an organization that you would like to pass that material out to, those can be ordered for free from ready.gov. Shipping is also free unless you need it expedited but then you would have to pay for your own expedited shipping. There is also the Feeling Safe being Safe program which is a program that was created by people with disabilities for the whole community; so for everyone. And it is a program that addresses making a personal emergency plan. So what you would do if an emergency happens. It addresses creating an emergency kit that you would be able to use to either shelter in place in your home or to evacuate should you have to do that. And they use plain language. They use pictures. It is just a very good easy to understand resource that really walks people through step by step the preparedness and individual planning process. The next bullet is a link to the ready Illinois website where you will find a preparedness series of videos in American Sign Language and they are very well done and address a number of aspects of emergency preparedness. If you know of people who are deaf and use sign language and are more comfortable getting that information in sign language, that''s a good resource. There is also the website do one thing.com. When we start talking about preparing for an emergency and getting an emergency kit, a lot of people feel that it seems a little bit overwhelming at times and as well as expensive. So do one thing.com walks you through creating an emergency kit and creating an emergency plan. And they do it by doing one thing a month throughout the year. So that at the end of the year you have a fully stocked prepared kit or you have a complete emergency plan. So that''s also a good resource. Especially for people who might not have the financial resources to go out and buy all the items that you need for an emergency kit right now. But it is also important to note that a lot of these items you might already have in your house. And you can just kind of keep them in a box or in a bag or in a place together where you could grab it quickly if you needed it is another option and then as you go shopping you can kind of rotate out that food and the water and make sure it is all still up to date. So what can agencies do? If you are an emergency management agency and you want to help the whole community to be better prepared for an emergency the first step is to make sure any preparedness information that you provide is accessible. Again, using alternate formats, plain language, pictures, American Sign Language, interpreter services, other languages. Make sure that the information you are putting out that can be used by the people that you are sending it out to. The other very important aspect is partnerships between emergency management and disability service providers, disability advocacy agencies. That partnership is critical. First of all, that partnership can provide resources for both parties. So technical expertise in both situations, emergency management can help a disability service provider to create their own agency plan and to walk through that plan. And disability service and advocacy agency can help emergency management to make sure their plans are inclusive and that they are really thinking of all the different things that might come up during an emergency for persons with disabilities. And it is also important to have an agency emergency plan. In a couple of minutes we will talk about this a little bit more in-depth but during the preparedness phase when you have an agency emergency plan it is important that you are able to communicate that plan to your employees, to the people who might be visiting your agency''s location at any time. So it is important to have an accessible way to get information about that emergency plan to people and to make sure that there are accessible alerts and warnings in your building. So that people know something is going on and that the emergency plan is going to be activated. It is also important for individuals to make an emergency plan. And when you are making your emergency plan it is important to focus on communication, not only how will you know that an emergency is going on. But also how will you get other information about the emergency. How will you know where shelters are, where the services are going to be provided and how will you contact your family or your friends that you are going to want to contact to make sure that they are okay. So think about the ways that you typically communicate and see if you can get a low tech backup or other, you know, a secondary way to communicate with people. A lot of times in emergency cell phone lines can get clogged or jammed. So text messages sometimes go through easier. So think about things like that as well. Think about evacuation. If you had to leave your home during an emergency and go to a shelter how would you get there? Who would you call if you needed someone to assist you? Think about taking your durable medical equipment, your medications or anything else that you might need to support yourself for a couple of days in a shelter with you when you evacuate and think about support services that you would use and how you would access them in a shelter. If you use personal assistant care services does the agency you use have an emergency plan? Do they have contacts with other agencies in surrounding counties so that they still have staff to come work with you during an emergency? You know, if you are going to school or work does your school or place of employment have an emergency plan as well. And then also have an emergency kit and again include low tech alternatives to any high tech communication devices. If you use an electronic communication board maybe you would also have a laminated book of pictures or printed out phrases like please bring my wheelchair with me to the shelter or something like that. Those are some things to think about in advance for individuals. As far as planning or agencies, this is two parts. One would be to know the role that you would play in your community during and after an emergency. Are you going to be able to help with things? Think about the things that your agency does best. So if you have a great communication network that reaches a lot of people in the community and that can disseminate information quickly, would you be able to potentially disseminate some of that emergency information. Would you be able to make a video in American Sign Language that will go over some of that emergency information? Would you be able to, if you are an agency that works directly with people with disabilities, would you be able to call the people you work with that are living in the area to do kind of health and safety checks? Making sure that everyone has what they need. Again it is important here that agencies have that connection with emergency management in the community. So that if there are needs they can let them know what''s going on and so the agency themselves can know what''s going on and what''s happening with the situation. Again having an accessible emergency plan for your employees and visitors is very important. This includes having signage if all the entrances to your building are not accessible it is very important to have very clear signage to show which entrances and exits are accessible so that someone doesn''t waste time going down a corridor or going to an entrance that they are not going to be able to use. It is also important to have alert and notification devices that are going to be accessible for everyone. So if you have fire alarms that also have strobe lights, some agencies will also have kind of a light up readout near the fire alarm that will tell you what the emergency is and what you need to do. So kind of an electronic board that will put that information up during an emergency. Also important to think about the safe areas in your building. So if there was a tornado, where is the safest area in your building? And are people with disabilities people with mobility disabilities or who use wheelchairs or other mobility devices going to be able to access that safe space and if not, what is the recommendation, what can you do to make sure that there is a safe space that everyone is going to be able to access. And it is important to include people with disabilities in the planning process. If you have employees with disabilities and they have disclosed that information to you and they are willing to work with you, they can be very valuable resources in the planning process. They can tell you exactly what they would need to be able to evacuate the building, what they would need to be able to receive alerts and warnings and other information. So I will say this again and again throughout the webinar it is very important to include people that have disabilities in the planning process. They are going to be able to help you work around some of the barriers that as a person without a disability you might feel are, you know, you might be stumped on how to get around. But people with disabilities live that every day and are able to adapt and they might have an easy and quick solution. So it is important to include them in the planning process. It is also important to include people with disabilities in drills and exercises. A lot of situations come up in drills and exercises that you don''t expect to come up beforehand that you don''t expect to come up when you are just talking about a potential emergency situation. And that''s the whole point of having a drill or an exercise, is to see what emerges from that, what the barriers are and, you know, find good work around for different barriers. So it is important to actually have people with different types of disabilities in your drills and exercises. So that you can be exposed to any of those barriers or any of those work around before an emergency actually happens and it gives you a chance to put that information in to your plan. A lot of people ask how you would recruit people with disabilities to participate in planning activities and exercise activities. It is important to again have that connection between emergency management and leaders in the disability community. So I have listed on the slide a couple of organizations or, you know, there is also the general disability specific groups. Some organizations that you can reach out to in your community to see if they have people that are interested in participating in an emergency planning. See if there are people who have experience in emergency planning. And also these organizations will have a connection to a lot more people with disabilities than the emergency management organization typically will. So they will be able to get that message out and recruit volunteers potentially easier. It is also important to note that as you are including people with disabilities in your planning and exercise activities you are going to need to plan for how you can provide accommodations that people might need in order to fully participate in those exercises or in those planning meetings. They are going to have to think about where you will go to get sign language interpreters. Making sure building where meetings are held are accessible. Making sure meetings themselves are accessible. If you are having a webinar and closed captioning in multiple ways to access that speaker and that information. I am going to actually go back. You can also look to a lot of people with disabilities are starting to go in to emergency management and so you can look to employees of emergency management agencies as well or similar organizations people who volunteer with the Red Cross and other organizations, other disaster service organizations as well. Receiving alerts and warnings, there are a number of ways that people can receive information about impending or occurring disasters such as severe weather, tornados, and things like that. Something that we really push at FEMA is having a weather radio. So this is a device that will I think -- I think most people have heard them but they typically have a very loud siren or beeping sound and then a voice comes on telling you what the emergency is. Say it is a tornado watch or a tornado warning and they are often area specific alerts. You can also get adapted devices with these weather radios. So you can get a weather radio that hooks up to, like you see in the picture on the screen, a pillow shaker and a refreshable Braille readout. So someone who is deaf and blind would be able to know that an emergency is happening and also to know what the emergency is. They can also be outfitted with strobe lights and text readouts as well. You can also sign up for e-mail alerts through a few different services. I know that the weather channel has an e-mail alert system where you can type in your location or multiple locations that you want to keep track of and what type of alerts you would want to know about. And they will send you an e-mail when there is severe weather or whatever type of alert information you said that you wanted to receive. And there are a number of agencies that do that. A lot of agencies also send out text alerts over your phone. You can sign up for those and a lot of communities have reverse 911 systems. These are systems where emergency managers can send out emergency alerts or information through this reverse 911 system and it can be either call, text or send an e-mail to your phone or your computer. Or send a message to a TTY to let people know that there is an emergency happening. It is important if you are an emergency manager in a locality to that''s thinking about implementing a reverse 911 system. It is important to make sure that it is not just phone calls. So if there are multiple ways for people to sign up to receive alerts. Making sure that people can receive those through text and that they can receive them to a TTY. With all of the recent advances in technology there are also a lot of Smartphone applications that serve as weather radios. And these are nice because some of them are paid applications but some of them are free as well. And a lot of them are nice because they can be targeted so that you receive alerts from a certain location. Or they can be targeted so that you receive alerts from wherever you are at the time and you can let them know again what types of alerts you would want to receive and how you want to receive those. Whether it is through a push notification on your phone or a text message or an e-mail or a phone call. And then there are the traditional media sources as well. Television, radio and Internet resources. So it is important to know what stations you typically listen to for weather information or for emergency information. But it is also important to have a backup option. So in case the power is out can you get information on your cell phone instead of the computer, for example. Or can you have a friend or family member text you so that, you know, you might receive multiple messages sometimes but if one system doesn''t work you will be able to get the information through another way. It is important to try out different services as well. I know I personally signed up for an e-mail alerting service and I found out that did not work for me at all because I rarely check my e-mail when I am not at home, my personal e-mail. And so those messages were just going on red. So I eventually tried out another method with text messages. That works a lot better for me. It is important to try out the different services in advance as well. And again have one or more backup options in case one of those fails. Now agencies that have a good network of contacts and reach a lot of people in the community and a lot of people with disabilities in the community can help by passing along certain emergency information. It can also help by educating individuals on the available resources for alerts and warnings. And talking to the media about accessibility. So if you are an emergency management agency or you work for an emergency management agent season you are talking to the media about the different messages that you want to get out to the public, talk to them about accessibility. Making sure that the news crawl on a news station doesn''t cover up closed captioning or that the closed captioning doesn''t cover up the news crawl if there is information in that news crawl that everyone needs to see. Making sure if there is a sign language interpreter within the television broadcast that the camera stays on the interpreter and -- it is panned far enough back that you can see all the interpreter''s movements. And it is important to try and provide sign language interpreters for television broadcasts. We all know during an emergency if we get nervous, if we get scared, it is a little bit harder for us to receive and retain a bunch of different information and it makes it a lot easier if we can get that information in the method that is easiest for us and that we are most comfortable with. And then again I just have another note to make sure reverse 911 systems can send messages to TTYs and by text. Another aspect of emergency planning that is very important is evacuation. Evacuation is a big topic. We could probably have an entire webinar on evacuation. Something that individuals can do to prepare for an evacuation is one, to know your transportation needs. It is important to also think of backup options if you have a vehicle and a tree falls on it how are you going to evacuate. It is important to think about taking any equipment that you use and any service animals with you. That''s going to help you maintain your independence wherever you go to shelter, whether that be with a friend or family member or whether that be in an emergency shelter. And again it is important to have backup options in case one of those options does not work out. And it is important to think about how to communicate with first responders. So emergency managers can help by planning with public transportation providers and para transit providers and other accessible transportation providers to have a plan so that people know if they need to evacuate what the plan is, where they can go for accessible transportation. The approximate number of people in the area who might need accessible transportation so they can plan to find those resources and have those contracts in place. It is also important again to remember that people need to transport their wheelchairs and other equipment and service animals with them as well. So we need to look at transportation that is going to be able to do that. Also important to think about how individuals will request assistance with evacuation. Is there a call in number? Is there someone that is going to field those calls and be able to find the resources? So what''s that whole process look like. A lot of communities have implemented registries. It is important to remember to keep these updated if there is a disaster and first responders go to someone''s home to assist them with an evacuating and they moved away from that home three years ago, that kind of takes up their time and resources that could be used for someone else. It is also important to remember that people are out and about all the time. So while I might have my home address on a registry, I might be at work most of the day, out with friends in the evening, going somewhere else on Saturday. So it is still important to have a way for people to contact you with requests for accessible transportation during an evacuation or else if you are going to set up a system where there are going to be certain points where accessible transportation is provided, certain points throughout the city, you need to make sure that people are able to get to those one but also that people know that information and know where to find those. And so you are really going to have to think about accessible communication and public messaging again. So it is disability service and advocacy agencies can do to help coordinate those disability specific resources. One very positive promising practice that we have seen implemented in a lot of localities lately is to have a disability resource person sit in the emergency operations center. So that they can coordinate needs request with resources. And so they know what types of resources are in the community and have contact with those, with the people that provide those resources within the community. And it is important that this be someone that understands disability issues and understands the resources and supports that are available to people with disabilities so that they can effectively coordinate those needs. Can also help with disseminating information about evacuations and other emergency information. They can help with health and safety checks. And again just having that connection with emergency management is very important. So the plan in advance for sheltering. It is important again to for individuals if they can to take their durable medical equipment and assistive technology and service animals with them. To utilize support services they might need and let shelter workers know what your needs are. So if you lost your equipment during a disaster or you weren''t able to bring a wheelchair with you, or you typically access personal care services but you don''t know if your agency is going to be able to find you in the shelter, practice letting shelter workers know what those needs are so that they will be able to coordinate resources so that you can maintain your independence and receive loaner equipment or replacement equipment while you are at the shelter and receive those services that you need to stay independent as well. What emergency managers can do is to plan in advance. FEMA has one big resource called guidance on planning for the integration of functional needs support services in general population shelters that is based off of the Department of Justice''s ADA toolkit for state and local governments. In Chapter 7, the shelter planning chapter or the emergency management chapter that has an addendum for shelter planning. And it is based off of that document and it goes in to a lot more detail and tries to give you different tools and examples from different localities about what they have done to make their shelter planning more inclusive. It is important to plan in advance. It is important to review shelter sites and it says that it is done by a mix of emergency managers and people with knowledge of disability issues. To make sure that shelter sites are accessible and are going to be -- that everyone is going to be able to access them. It also becomes very important when if there are not a lot of accessible shelter locations in an area, someone with expertise in the area of building accessibility can help emergency management to figure out what things need to be done to make that location accessible. So if there needs to be a ramp or if there are needs -- if the door handles on the building need to be changed or something like that. A lot of localities have been getting trained in the fast concept and this is an integrated group of shelter reviewers that can go and review shelter sites in advance. It is very effective and it is a very promising practice. So that we are not scrambling while an emergency is happening to get someone to be able to use the building as a shelter. Also important to plan for power needs. Are your shelter sites going to have backup generators and what is the plan for power since people are going to need power for air conditioning, for people who have difficulty regulating their body temperature? People are going to need to charge their wheelchairs or communication devices or to use CPAP machines. So power is very important in a shelter. Also important to plan for different dietary needs. As well as a quiet space within a shelter where people can go and shelters are very noisy and very loud. There is a lot going on. Having a quiet space where people can go and get away from some of that noise, to get away from some of the information and the news pertaining to the disaster. And kind of sit with, you know, a little less stimulation. It is very effective for a lot of people and it is also important to in advance to have contracts and agreements in place for different goods and services. So contracts in place for durable medical equipment in case that is needed. For interpreters, for information in alternate formats. For a plan for, you know, how to get medication to people who have run out of or have not been able to bring their medication with them. So it is very important to have those contracts and agreements put together in advance. And disability service and advocacy agencies can help by working with emergency managers around shelters helping to review shelter sites and planning for the continuation of any services that the agency provides to people with disabilities. So after a disaster is your agency still going to be up and running and providing services and how quickly can you get back up and running. And they can also help with planning for communication within the shelter, making sure everyone has access to recovery information and is able to communicate their needs to shelter staff and things like that. So after -- when people are in the shelter and they are starting to be able to go back to their community, water is back on, electricity is back on, it is also important to remember that some people will need additional services within that community to be back up and running before they are able to safely return and maintain their independence there. So this is something important to think about when we are thinking about closing down shelters. So when people are returning to the community it is important to know are all the services still available? Someone who lived on the west side of town and accessed a dialysis clinic nearby, is that dialysis clinic up and running? Is transportation available? Is accessible transportation available? Is there accessible housing within the community? A lot of times communities struggle with accessible housing even without a disaster. There tend to be long wait lists and just a general lack of accessible housing. So that''s something that is important to think about. Is some of that accessible housing stock has been destroyed? And we are going to need to think about those things before shelters close down so that people are not returning to a place where they cannot get the services and the support and the accessible housing that they need to maintain their independence. It is also very important for disability service and advocacy agencies to get involved with long term recovery committee. These committees typically meet on a local level. There are a lot of voluntary organizations involved. And they talk about unmet needs within the community and how those needs can be met. It is very important to have a disability perspective on those recovery committees. Someone who knows the resources that are available for people with disabilities or the supports and equipment and things that people might need. And it is also important when we are rebuilding the community to think about universal accessibility. So we have the opportunity after a disaster if, you know, parts of the community have been destroyed, make sure that we focus on rebuilding with universal accessibility in mind. Making sure that everyone is going to be able to access all of the public buildings, the sidewalks, the roadways, and it is very important to have the perspective of people with disabilities and disability services and advocacy agencies in this process as well. And that''s not only going to make the community more accessible in general but if there ever is a disaster again it is going to make it easier on people who are looking at shelter sites. Who are looking at sites that they can use to set up disaster recovery centers and things like that. That is the end of my part of the presentation. I said I would give everyone my contact information. So let me give that to you very quickly. Again my name is Jessica Mitchell. And that''s Jessica Mitchell. And my e-mail address is Jessica.Mitchell@fema.dhs.gov and my phone number is area code 314-223--- I am sorry I am giving everyone my personal phone number. I apologize. My work phone is area code 312-576-2624. And I would be happy to take any questions. Jessica Madrigal: Jessica is that phone number also accessible to someone using a TTY device or is there an alternate number for that? JESSICA MITCHELL: They would need to use the relay service to call that number. That''s my work cell phone. Jessica Madrigal: Okay. Thank you very much for all this wonderful information. Operator, do you want to give some instructions on how the people on the phone can ask questions?
Yes, ma''am. Ladies and gentlemen if you have a question please press star and then 1 on your touch tone phone. If your question has been answered or wish to remove yourself from the queue you may press the pound key. And we do have our first question on the phone line and it comes from Jim Parker. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi I am wondering what the site was for the Department of Justice shelter doc that you referred to. I believe it was in chapter 7. You kind of rattled it off real fast. I wanted to write that down.
Yes. Definitely. Let me look real quick to see what the exact web address is. The name of the document itself is the -- I am having trouble doing two things at once... Is the best practices toolkit for state and local governments. And that can be accessed at -- it is a little bit of a long web address but if you go to www.ada.gov/pcatoolkit/toolkitmain.htm and I apologize that that''s so long. Do you need me to repeat it? Caller: Well, if not I can probably e-mail you about it. I thought other people would want to hear it as well.
We posted the link to the toolkit in the chat box.
I don''t -- I don''t have the right software to get the visual on this. I have been doing notes on my presented out copies and listening. So I won''t be able to access that.
You are welcome to send me an e-mail and I can send you the link.
Appreciate it Jessica. Thank you.
Thank you again ladies and gentlemen if do you have question please press star and then 1 on your touch tone phone.
While we are waiting for more of those phone line questions to come in it seems we have had a few of our people on the webinar who wanted to discuss more about the emergency registry. If you can tell us where people find in the state or local government, to who contact on that list and get information that they might need to volunteer to make sure that they are going to get the messages that come through the registry that would be appreciated by the audience.
Sure. There are a couple of different components to this. So one is to get information about, you know, emergencies that are happening right now to get that. I don''t know that that is always done through registries. It is typically done through the reverse 911 system or the alert and warning system. Like notify Chicago has a thing that you can, you know, sign up for and give them your phone number and you will get alerts and warnings through text message or you can sign up for e-mail. With the registries and it is different in different municipalities and not all of them have registries but typically those are used for -- you will give your name, let them know that you might need assistance with evacuating, what type of assistance you might need and again I hesitate because it is different in each municipality but that''s typically the information that''s requested. And so when something happens in a certain area, they could potentially if you say that this is a service that you would want, it could potentially send, you know, first responders out to check on you and see if you do need assistance. One caveat to that is it is a very large emergency that, you know, they -- this might not have an enough staff to do that with all the other response activities that are going on. That''s important to think about as well. But you would contact your local emergency manager. So you can typically look up your city or county emergency management department, type it in to Google or if you need assistance you can feel free to contact me and I will try to help you out with that as well. But again, not every community is going to have a registry system.
And another question regarding the topic, do you have any tips or advice or people to encourage people with disabilities to participate in registries if people are seeming like they are not wanting to participate or they are worried about what is going to happen about that information. Any success tips to get them to participate?
Sure I think the way I would answer that is to say if people do not want to participate in the registry, it is -- I think it is more important to make sure that they have information about preparedness. So how to keep themselves prepared and how to respond in the event of an emergency. So I think that''s the place more for education about what you can do to keep yourself safe. And how you can work with your support network. Make sure you have a workable emergency plan. Other than that, you know, I understand that people are weary of giving people, you know, others their personal information. I would really like to come to that question from more of a point of giving people information and education and making sure that there is a way for people to request assistance when they do need it. MODERATOR: Thank you and do you have any information on how or if the HIPPA regulations apply to things like emergency registries? JESSICA MITCHELL: Actually I have the U.S. department of Health and Human Services has an online HIPPA tool. And let me see if I can get the website for that but there is a decision flow chart and a lot of information about HIPPA and you can actually click on questions and answer them yes, or no and it will tell you whether HIPPA covers that specific instance. Let me see if I can find that website quickly. It was the first thing that came up when I -- it is a very, very long website unfortunately. I don''t think that I am going to try to read that off but it was the first thing that came up when I Googled HHS HIPPA tool and that''s for anyone who is not as familiar that''s HIPAA but it is at www.hhs.gov. It is on their website. It is a very, very long URL.
And for those of you who are in our webinar room we have posted that link in the chat box. JESSICA MITCHELL: Perfect. MODERATOR: And we can send these resources after a session in an e-mail that is registered and participating. So don''t worry about trying to write things down very quickly. We will summarize and send it out to you for your reference. Operator do we have any other telephone questions to address?
Currently showing no additional questioners in the queue. But as a reminder please press star +1 and go ahead.
We will then go ahead with one of our webinar questions. Jessica we have someone who wants to know if FEMA provides recommendation or best practice information for specific emergency planning or evacuation of K through 12 schools, specifically for students or access staff with functional needs. JESSICA MITCHELL: We do have some information that I know of. We have done a couple of youth focused conferences, emergency planning conferences recently in other regions. Jessica I am not sure how to get that information out to people once I do get it. Can I just send the information to you and you can send it out? MODERATOR: Yes. That''s fine. We can put it all together and get it out to everyone so that everyone has the information if they want to look at it. JESSICA MITCHELL: Okay. Great. And I can probably also get a couple of other school and youth focused resources as well that might not be actual, you know, FEMA documents but that might also be helpful. So I will get that information out to everyone.
Great. Thank you. I am sure that everyone is going to appreciate that. Another question that we have is regarding sheltering, and there is a few that have come in around this theme. First service animals, so should a person expect that the shelter staff or volunteers are going to be aware that a service animal should stay with the person? And then another about medication: if someone has a medication that needs to be refrigerated, can they can assured that when they get to the shelter that will be available for them?
To answer both of those questions very quickly. We have been trying to do a lot of education and technical information with our state emergency planner partners as well as with local emergency managers and partners like the Red Cross, who typically take the lead in a lot of the sheltering activities. So a lot of that is based off that functional need support services document that I mentioned earlier. We have some very specific training in relation to that. I am not going to be able to unfortunately assure you that any time you go to a shelter, you know, you won''t get asked about your service animal or there will always be refrigeration for medication but those are two issues that are very specific in that training, that we are trying to make sure that everyone understands that service animals go wherever a person with a disability can go in a shelter and that a lot of people are going to need refrigeration for medication. So I think the information is getting out there. I could nott 100 percent tell that you every shelter you go to that will happen, although that is the goal. But we are doing a lot of education on both of those subjects.
Great. Thank you. And another question that''s come in through our webinar. You spoke a little bit about American Sign Language interpreters. You have information that you can provide to the audience about who is responsible for providing those services and paying for them?
What I will just say generally is that typically the person who owns the program is, you know, and I say that you guys can''t see my air quotes but the program or activity is going to be responsible for providing any types of accommodations that people might need, whether that''s in the shelter, whether that''s within a disaster recovery center or anything like that. And so it would be -- it is not the person with a disability''s responsibility to get or certainly to pay for a sign language interpreter but will be the agency that''s administering those services or those programs. And my suggestion would be that if you are in a shelter or if you are at a disaster recovery center and you need a sign language interpreter to make that request and, you know, we should have all the policies and procedures in place to meet those needs. But it would end up being at a disaster recovery center, I will use as an example. FEMA typically runs disaster recovery centers and sets them up and pays for them. FEMA would be paying the bill for the interpreters at a disaster recovery center.
Great thank you for answering that. Another question from our webinar participants. Can you talk a little bit more about planning for evacuation of a high rise apartment building or a high rise work building for someone who has mobility impairment?
Sure. Excuse me. One of the biggest, you know, one of the most important things when we are thinking about planning for evacuation of a high rise building for someone who has a mobility disability is to involve that person in the planning. I know that some buildings use the areas of refuge or areas of assistance where someone will wait in a stairwell or another safe room area for an emergency responder to come assist them. But a lot of agencies that are in high rise buildings and a lot of high rise apartment buildings are really starting to look at evacuation chairs for people. So that they can get out of the building at the same time that everyone else is evacuating and they don''t have to wait for that assistance from the emergency responders. It is important to involve people with disabilities in the selection process for those evacuation chairs. There aren''t any federal standards or federal recommendations of specific evacuation chairs but it is important to talk to the person with a mobility disability about what is going to work best for them and their needs. So if someone has, you know, people are just going to need different things and then evacuation chairs. So some people might not be able to use a chair that has too many straps or straps that in a certain position because it might restrict their breathing while someone else might be more concerned about potentially falling out of the chair and might be more comfortable with straps and some people will be more comfortable with different shapes of chairs. So I think the most important part of that is to involve people with mobility disabilities and any decision process there. But unfortunately there are not federal standards on evacuation chairs specifically at this time.
Thanks for answering that. Operator, do we have any other phone questions?
Yes, ma''am. Fred Johnson your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, I had a question about the trailers for the announcement for emergencies. Is anything being worked on to make sure those are audible as well as visual?
Yes, ma''am. The trailers are -- we call them temporary housing units, the difference in terminology but they are kind of one of our last resorts. So if there is accessible rental housing in the area we try to use that. Of course, making that accessible as well. But we are making sure that our trailers do have emergency alerts and warnings like you said are going to be audible as well as have the strobe light. If people need bed shakers or other types of equipment we will make sure that they have as well. We have a process in place not only for people to request those but we are looking in to trying to make all of our temporary housing units 100 percent accessible so we don''t have to request "special equipment" or, you know, special accessibility features that all of them are universally accessible and that''s definitely one of the things that we are looking in to but as of right now those are available for people who need them.
Okay. I am sorry, I said the wrong term. I am talking about the news crawlers whenyou are making the public announcements on Television (TV) so make sure those are audible as well as visual when they are putting them on the screen.
I apologize. That is unfortunately not something that we have 100 percent control over. Kind of what I put in the presentation that it is important for emergency managers as well as disability service and advocacy organizations to kind of talk to and educate the media and let them know the importance of if something is important enough to put on the crawler it is important enough to say verbally so that everyone can understand that. That''s part of what we are trying to push with this education process as well as to help educate all of our partners on accessibility especially with communication.
Do we have any more phone questions? Operator. No ma''am. I am showing no additional questioners on the phone line queue again at this time. To ask a question you may press star and then 1.
We have a few more minutes. I will try to get to some of our webinar questions. We see that people are asking for any additional thoughts on best ways to conduct outreach and to help those planners make sure that everything is accessible.
Sure. I think that that is really where those connections with community leaders come in to play in the disability community. So making sure that you not only know what organizations might be taking a lead role or have a very expansive contact list and a way to reach a number of people and getting them onboard not only with disseminating your information and your programs but also inviting them in to help make your programs and your planning more accessible as well. So that it is a collaborative relationship and that both sides are benefitting from that. I would also say anything that you can offer as well is always good. So many organizations like centers for independent living will provide independent living training to individuals with disabilities. And so perhaps providing a class on emergency preparedness on personal emergency preparedness or creating your emergency kit or your emergency plan would also be an opportunity to get directly connected with people. And that might help to get people more involved in emergency management as well.
Great.
I think it is really those relationships that is what are important.
Thank you. And this will be our final question before we wrap up. We are running out of time. Transportation is a huge issue in emergency evacuation. We were wondering what obligation a community has to make sure that there accessible transportation for people especially in rural areas.
It is important -- this is coming from a local emergency management agency, it is important to talk to your legal advisor about some of these questions as well. And I am not going to be able to give you legal advice on what your responsibility is but if you are providing transportation for the public in general, to, you know, shelters, for instance, it is important to, you are required to also have accessible transportation for people with disabilities. And I think that''s kind of as far as I can go. For more specifics you would need to talk to your legal counsel or someone at the Department of Justice or someone like that that can give you more of that legal advice. I apologize.
No problem. Thank you for all of this wonderful information. Everyone we are going to cut off questions now as we need to wrap up. We are approaching 2:30 central time. So this concludes today''s ADA audio conference program. We realize there may still be questions that you have as you if are coming in to the chat box or if our phone callers are still having questions we encourage you to follow up with your regional ADA center. You can contact your ADA center 800-949-4232 and you have Jessica''s contact information in case you wanted to follow up directly with her. We want to thank Jessica from FEMA for sharing her time and knowledge with us. I think that everyone definitely learned a lot from today''s program. The program is being recorded and there will be a written transcript for you to download from our website, www.ada.audio.org and that should be ready within the next ten business days and we would like to you join us on June 19, 2012 and it will cover accessible parking requirements and enforcements. Questions regarding our ADA audio conference series can be directed to 877-232-1990 or by e-mail to adaconferences@adagreatlakes.org. Complete the evaluation for today''s program as we value your input. Thank you for joining us. Thanks again to Jessica and have a good day.