It is six years after the attack on the World Trade Center and one year after the New Orleans Katrina disaster and our governments have yet to put into practice most the recommendations made after each tragedy. Massachusetts, working through the Department of Public Health and the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, has yet to involve people with disabilities in a working relationship to plan for any of the potential next disasters.
- In July, a new director of emergency planning in Plymouth, MA, found the only substantive example of disability-readiness was a list of 100 people with disabilities in his community of 59,000.
- The work plan submitted by the Department of Public Health for continued CDC funding identifies 1.2 million people (20%) as the “special populations” target. However, the definition of special population is extremely broad – pregnant women, the elderly, foreign speaking citizens, etc. People with disabilities constitute 19% of the Massachusetts population, so the planners don’t even have a handle on the number of people they are dealing with.
- Analysis by a Massachusetts disability organization of the Massachusetts Department of Public health projects funded for “special populations” revealed a scatter-shot approach that did not document a plan for meeting the complex needs of people with disabilities.
Massachusetts should devote a significant portion of its federal resources to brining people with disabilities into the planning processes at all levels. Massachusetts (and the federal government) should develop best practices so every community does not have to invent the best way to decontaminate a person in a power wheelchair.