Four million people...and we nearly forget them.

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"The Haiti earthquake in January 2010 and other recent emergency situations have drawn particular attention to the plight of persons with disabilities in emergency situations...Mainstreaming disability into emergency responses and preparedness, by making disability issues and persons with disabilities visible in national and international actions plans and policies, is essential to ensure equality and human rights for all.'" United Nations

I recently came across a twitter post that discussed a guy in the states who had introduced wheelchairs to the University grounds as part of his emergency management plan.

It lead to quite an interesting discussion with some folks about the considerations of people with disabilities during emergency situations.

My own life has had very little experience of this area. My mother used to work with Social Services and the disabled for many years but I never really took much interest - mainly because I was more interested in Take That.

But in recent years my father has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and I've seen the physical decline of a man who once threw full beer barrels from the back of a truck disintegrate into a man who can just hold a fork.

Although I'm really just starting out on the path of emergency management, in my previous dances with it over the past years, I was ashamed to realised that whenever I'd thought about EM - I hadn't really given much consideration to the impact of emergencies in the context of disability.

So during some initial research on the subject, I came across a number of policies and guidelines that I found a great starting point.

According to the results of the ‘Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers’ in 2009, four million people in Australia reported having a disability.

Probably the best starting point was this document by the Minister for Justice. It contains a great overview of considerations to make and a good section about communication considerations and a handy flow chart to condense important information. At the end of the document links and other resources can be found.

An interesting paper can be found in relation to Hurricane Katrina and the Asian Tsunami in 2004 titled 'Natural Hazards, Human Vulnerability and Disabling Societies: A Disaster for Disabled People?' by Laura Hemingway, Mark Priestley. A PDF version can be downloaded here.

The UN also has some great articles that review international disasters. You can find them here.

The Emergency Management magazine has an interesting article that notes in USA alone,

"... in any disaster planned for by emergency management personnel, one in five people encountered will have a disability of some type. Studies after Hurricane Katrina found that approximately one-third of those who did not leave their homes during the disaster had a disability. "

This article also contains a link to a document entitled 'Functional Needs of People with Disabilities: A Guide for Emergency Managers, Planners and Responders'. It contains some examples of previous disasters of various natures and how it impacted on people with disabilities. It is based on issues in USA but is an interesting read.

Finally closer to home here in Australia, the Red Cross have a good booklet about this topic for people with disabilities who are preparing for disasters.

During the few hours of research into this area, I've certainly had my eyes opened and will endeavour to ensure that any policy construction not only includes these considerations but that they can be backed up on a practical level as well.