Emergency Plans That Include Workers With Disabilities

Summary:
In the wake of the September 11 disasters in the United States, there's an unspoken question on many minds: How can we include an employee with a disability in our emergency and evacuation plans? Here are some answers to allay your darkest fears.

What Will Happen to our Disabled Workers If There Is an Emergency?

Strategies That Save Lives

Tools and Help Before You Need It

What Have You Learned About Disability Considerations in Emergency Planning Since 09-11-01?

Related Links



What Will Happen to our Disabled Workers If There Is an Emergency?

Much has been reported and much has been discussed about the terrorist attacks in New York City, at the Pentagon and in a cornfield in Pennsylvania on September 11 - on the news, around the TV at home and the water cooler in offices and other work sites around the world. Our own main office for eSight was three blocks east of where the World Trade Center (WTC) stood, and our own staff was impacted in a number of ways. Those of us who telecommute searched the news, the web -- anything we could access -- to learn the fate of our co-workers for days until we finally were able to ascertain that, although each had a personal disturbing story of survival, all were well and the office would soon reopen.

Meanwhile, the news media brought us stories about people with disabilities who worked in the WTC. The disability discussion lists were a-buzz with accounts of heroism, kindness and tragedy involving employees who were blind or in wheelchairs and had worked in the twin towers. CNN's Larry King interviewed a totally blind man whose guide dog and a sighted worker saw him safely out of one of the towers.

The vice president of a New York blind computer users group also made it out. A man who uses a wheelchair escaped because his employer had made sure he was part of any evacuation plan after the WTC bombing in 1993. A woman was bodily carried out of the building by two co-workers. Not so fortunate: another wheelchair user and his co-workers who perished in the collapse because they would not leave him behind.

Our own staff suffered physically and emotionally from the smoke and chaos and having to find a way home to other parts of the city and surrounding communities without either sight or the usual modes of transit.

No wonder, then, that one of the first e-mails I received from an eSight Careers Network member on September 11 expressed not only concern for us but also frustration with disaster-preparedness organizations. He said he had worked with a number of them which have disregarded his urging that disabled people be taken into account and included in both initial planning and final preparation.

In the light of his very real concerns and our role as advisor and helper for employers who wisely look to job seekers who are blind or visually impaired to fill staffing needs, eSight decided to address the topic of how to include workers with disabilities -- and customers -- in your emergency strategies.

I started by asking a building safety officer at a major northwestern health insurer to voice his anxieties about the question, "What will happen to our disabled workers, if there is an emergency?" He ticked off several questions safety specialists within companies need to ask themselves:

• Has my company given any thought at all to including, in our corporate disaster plan, the special needs of employees with disabilities?
  
  
• Would employees who have mobility problems be trapped in an emergency, if they were located above the ground floor?
  
  
• Do our employees with disabilities know evacuation routes?
  
  
• Will we be able to inform emergency response workers about the medical needs of any injured employees who have disabilities?
  
  
• What do we do about people with special medical needs, if we were stranded in the building?
  
  
• Can I tell corporate managers that the anti-discrimination laws that cover people with disabilities also apply to adequate emergency preparedness?
  
  

The fear we all have boils down to whether people will be hurt or killed in a disaster caused by fire, flood, earthquake, blizzard, tornado, hurricane, volcanic eruption or terrorist attack. That is why we have emergency plans in the first place. The fear is simply amplified by the fact that the same strategies that might work well for most people may be inadequate for those who can't stand, walk, use stairs, see, hear, understand complex instructions or handle high stress situations. We worry that they may not hear the alarm, may not be able to find the emergency exit, may not be able to go downstairs and, truth be told, may prevent others from escaping.

According to the Job Accommodation Network, "The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) requires that employers, public services, and public accommodations and services operated by private entities modify their policies and procedures to include people with disabilities. This means that employers may be required to provide reasonable accommodations to employees so they can evacuate during emergencies. If visitors are allowed on the work site, a business may want to invite voluntary disclosure about whether they require assistance in an emergency."

The law aside, no one wants to see an employee, co-worker or themselves perish in a disaster, especially if it could have been prevented or at least an effort to prevent it could have been sincerely made.

I surveyed a variety of people with disabilities about whether they felt included in their companies' plans. With a couple encouraging exceptions, few did -- and some even reported resistance from the employer. It is poignant to read how the events of September 11th made the respondents more aware of the risk they uniquely face and their expressed need to take their lives into their own hands, to rely only on themselves (and to not count on others), to find the exits and to make decisions about self-preservation with or without the cooperation of the company management. Here are some of the responses about self-reliance I received:

• "Keep my dog and her harness where I have easy access to them."
  
  
• "Learn how to walk to safer areas without sighted help."
  
  
• "Stay aware, avoid substances that dull my perception and response time, and rely on my own intuition (rather than listen to [people] like the [ones in the] WTC who told folks to stay put)."
  
  
• "Believe in no one. Take your gut feeling of what has happened, help those who cannot get out ... but GET out ... FAST."
  
  

The good news is that, just as in every other situation which calls for problem solving about disability, clever people have looked at the barriers and found ways to overcome each and every one.

Don't let fear stop us from living our lives as free people. It is important also that we not let fear stop us from our enduring efforts to include all people in that quest for freedom. A number of disability discussion groups have contained stories about disabled people who worked in the WTC. That was encouraging in a bittersweet way: At least we know they had jobs.

Let's not take a step backwards. Instead, let's think this through now and be ready for what we hope never again happens.

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Strategies That Save Lives

The core of all risk management is to "prepare for the worst and hope for the best." It is good that you are thinking, "How will this disabled person escape, if there is an emergency?" By thinking through all the worst-case scenarios, you can anticipate specific situations and develop solutions for all eventualities.

The very best approach is to include consideration for special needs in your company-wide emergency plans as you develop them. This will save you time and money and prevent you from putting it off and possibly having to deal with the consequences. Supplement materials and training about general emergency preparedness available from the fire and police department, government emergency management agencies and the Red Cross with materials and training specific to disabilities. And, as one survey respondent urged, "Just like in other employment situations, ask disabled employees what they will need."

Chuck Hennigan with the Lacey (Washington State) Fire Department advises against relying on a cookie cutter type of disaster plan. "Each building," he says, "should have its own plan that accounts for the unique characteristics of that building and how that impacts (on the) evacuation of persons with disabilities."

The least likely disaster to happen to anyone is probably what did happen on September 11th. One is more likely to be stranded in a building after severe weather, such as a snowstorm or floods caused by torrential rain. The emphasis in disaster planning should be to prepare workers to be without heat, lights, water, communications and personal items.

Here are some strategies specifically related to blind or visually impaired people that could save lives:

• Provide large, bright signs and tactile indicators on emergency exits. With the assistance of a mobility instructor from a local blindness organization (if you feel you need it), teach the visually impaired workers how to get to the exit -- and have them practice it as part of your regular fire drills. Advise the worker not to rely on auditory cues (such as the copy machine near the stairs) to find the exit, since these cues will be absent, if the electricity goes off.
  
  
• Learn "sighted guide" and teach it to sighted workers. Make this part of team building and a company-wide "buddy plan."
  
  
• Ask each employee to prepare a "72-hour pack." You can find a checklist for this at Emergency Essentials. Disabled people, in particular, should think about what they might need, if, for instance, they were snowbound at work for three full days. Medicines, diabetes supplies (such as extra syringe needles, test devices and supplies, insulin and a way to keep it cold), personal hygiene items, food and water for an assistance animal, super-bright wide beam flashlight, an extra white cane and magnifiers, batteries for medical and other devices are all examples of unique needs a visually disabled employee might have. (See Tips for People with Visual Disabilities in Related Links for a useful checklist that includes items a visually impaired person may need.)
  
  
• Install emergency lights in electrical outlets along the escape route that will automatically come on, if electrical service is interrupted. About 90 percent of "blind" people have some vision, so this is important. You might imitate airliner safety with running mini-lights along the floor of the escape route. You could also have a bright, broad line painted on walls along the escape route. Clearly these strategies will help anyone in darkness due to electrical failure or heavy smoke.
  
  
• Be sure alerts can be communicated to all workers. For deaf-blind employees, the usual alarms or flashing lights won't work. Here is where help from co-workers can be crucial. In addition, a buzzer (perhaps attached to the desk and connected to the alarm system so it can be felt when it goes off), can alert someone with poor sight and hearing.
  
  
• Place some commonly-understood indicator (such as a red circle or whatever your local fire department uses) in the window next to a visually impaired person's workstation that lets emergency personnel know where he might be found in case of an emergency.
  
  
• Get the help of your local fire marshal, who will advise you about emergency plans for people with disabilities and who can record the needs of employees who may need special attention by emergency personnel.
  
  
• Ask employees (in a way which respects employee privacy) to obtain personal identification cards -- perhaps through a local hospital or fire department -- that includes health information, disability information, blood type, medications, emergency contacts and any other related information and ask them to carry these with them at all times when on the premises.
  
  
  
  

"But what if we solve the problem by just not hiring workers with disabilities?" asks the devil's advocate.

Marsha Katz of ADAPT Montana replies, "Evacuation in case of disaster is not going to be an essential function of most jobs, and so it would be illegal to not hire a qualified candidate because of that worry. Compare it to the illegal nature of not hiring a qualified woman candidate because you are worried she might get pregnant. And if discrimination exists, it's illegal, and people can exercise their due process rights to respond. In the WTC, lots of people, not just (people with disabilities), couldn't be evacuated. So, will companies now say, 'We can't rent any office space that is above the 3rd floor, or 10th floor, or whatever floor?' I doubt it. Disasters clearly happen, but they are also rare, and planning ahead ... can certainly improve chances of safety and survival."

Are disabled people inevitably a liability in an emergency? No. As one partially sighted man in Minnesota says, employers need to "understand that we are people. Some of us will be calm, some of us will overreact, and some of us will be leaders to lead others through the emergency."

Another person recounts, "Rather than depend on others during the time that an emergency is going on, I prepared beforehand to learn the emergency route from my office to the nearest exit as well as some alternative routes. In fact (during) a storm last summer, the lights were all knocked out and I ended up giving tours to the areas where there were windows in our office building."

And a guide dog owner plans to inform her employer that, "My dog can be a help to me and to others who need to exit the building in a hurry." Disabled workers are already making plans to rescue you.

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Tools and Help Before You Need It

Stairs seem to pose the most problems for evacuation -- and not just for disabled people. Just knowing where they are and having them well marked and clear of obstruction is not necessarily a given. I doubt any of us has not imagined 10,000 people trying to go down 110 stories of each WTC tower.

But what about elevators? Says the building safety officer cited above, "Elevators always get recalled to the bottom floor in a fire (rendering them useless) for two reasons:

1. Electric power is often lost quickly in a fire. If the elevators are in use when the power goes out, they can get trapped between floors. Not a good thing in a fast-spreading fire.
   
   
2. Elevator shafts act as chimneys. They tend to be depleted of oxygen (or at least fill with smoke) very quickly.
   
   

"Stairwells are much less so because the individual floors and the stairs themselves break up the straight vertical flow. The building safety information I've seen basically says that people in wheelchairs should be carried to the ground floor, leaving the wheelchair behind. That's pretty optimistic, in my opinion. I've seen rope-and-pulley contraptions designed to lower someone through a window, but that only works for heights of two or three floors at most."

Dr. Mark Kuczewski, director of the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics & Health Policy at Stritch School of Medicine of Loyola University, Chicago, calls for the development of "self-initiated and operated emergency exit system for persons who use wheelchairs or are otherwise unable to use stairs." He points out that such a system would not only save the lives of people with disabilities but also of rescue workers who would not have to put themselves at risk to rescue disabled people in tall buildings.

Until such a technology is developed and implemented, we will have to rely on more basic technology. The challenge with wheelchairs is their bulk, weight and poor maneuverability. Happily, a company in the United Kingdom sells the Evac+Chair that is a cross between a dolly and a shopping basket. It is lightweight and easy to use. As anyone who has used a dolly to move heavy boxes or equipment knows, the disabled person's weight will be considerably ameliorated.

The Evac+Chair's utility is illustrated in a true WTC story reported in Newsday about a 6-foot, four-inch, 250-pound quadriplegic man who had gone through the 1993 bombing. It took six hours to evacuate him. His employer, the New York Port Authority, purchased an Evac+Chair, and, on September 11th, the same difficult journey took one-and-a-half hours (one fourth the time!) -- ten minutes less than it took for the building to collapse. The man and his heroic friends and colleagues all survived.

In addition to evacuation, your workplace emergency strategy should prepare you for loss of electrical power, communications and transportation options -- and for critically dangerous incidents. Know how to turn off electricity, if lines break and there is risk of electrical shock. Have heavy gloves and other safety clothing and tools ready, if there is damage to the building itself. Know what to do and what not to do in case of workplace violence. All these are part of a standard disaster plan, but be sure that the other critical element, training workers, includes employees with disabilities.

In the Related Links section below, you will find several useful procedure manuals, disaster checklists and sample plans for specifically including employees with disabilities in your disaster preparations. They are produced by the American Red Cross, government offices and other agencies. These organizations will also help you develop your own unique plan. Take advantage of these resources as soon as possible so you never have to say, "I wish we had never put that planning off until it was too late."

You can be a leader in your business community by setting the standard for inclusion of workers with disabilities in your disaster plan. You can also lead by advocating that community public safety, municipal disaster preparedness agencies, and emergency personnel are ready to address the needs of people with disabilities -- and by providing monetary, volunteer and visible public support for that effort. Contact your mayor and governor today.

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What Have You Learned About Disability Considerations in Emergency Planning Since 9/11 2001?

What have you done or learned since September 11, 2001, about developing and executing emergency plans which involve individuals with disability? Please share your ideas and experiences with us.

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