pages: CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2018-05-09.pdf, 7
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CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities | 2018-05-09 | 7 | COMMISSION ON DISABILITY MEETING MUTES OF Wednesday May 9, 2018 6:30 p.m. need to take a look at The way to look at this is, look at types of disabilities, how that impacts, or how that interacts with different effects of climate change. And it's difficult for us because it is so complex to put that into policy and to put that into efforts to protect people's well being, that we need to take a really dynamic look at it. But some of the simple ways to look at it, if you can imagine major impacts on people with disabilities is during extreme weather events, which could include storms and natural disasters. We might need to have concerns about the accessibility of shelters and evacuation methods, warnings about incoming disaster events. Certainly, people in the fires that were up in Napa who were deaf, didn't hear the sirens going down the street and people, some people were able to escape, but only because they woke up from the smell of smoke. That we need to have good outreach and communication during disasters. There are fragile support systems, so that if something happens and people get scattered then individuals that need personal care support will need to re-establish that. Alex Ghenis: And that also something we should focus on providing potentially in disaster shelters if need be during heat waves. I, with my spinal cord injury, can't sweat on very hot days. It's a very, very frustrating part of my disability, and certainly people with other compromised health conditions might be vulnerable to extreme heat. Also because of economic situations, might have lower quality housing or reduced access to air conditioning or the ability to pay for that. When we're talking about displacement and migration and potentially longer term efforts at shifting around the population of Alameda within the city, we do need a focus on accessible transit, accessible housing, and then also the ability to have portable personal care support and government and healthcare benefits. Some of the economic effects is, as I mentioned briefly earlier, that people with disabilities already deal with disproportion of poverty, already deal with higher levels of unemployment, things along those lines, and if economies go haywire or just simply have some disruptions due to climate change, then that will especially affect our community. Alex Ghenis: So a quick example here is natural disasters, these are certainly things that we've seen. And what we notice is that the main one that got people's attention was Hurricane Katrina and the view of people who used wheelchairs stranded in the middle of streets in New Orleans. Those are the bottom two images, the left side is Katrina, and then the right side is the middle of the Super Dome. On the top left, we've got forest fires in California. We're unlikely to get direct fires here in Alameda, but certainly smoke and some of the maybe even disruptions to power, if fires hit major transmission lines could be a concern for our community. On the top right, the busting of Oroville Dam, which caused 300,000 or 200,000 people to need to evacuate last 2017, January 2017. So some of the issues that we care about, and certainly things that Alameda cares about in terms of disaster readiness are communications for people with sensory disabilities, first of all, to make them aware of what disaster response plans are and produce those in accessible formats, digital formats. Alex Ghenis: Potentially print braille, potentially large print for people with cognitive or learning disabilities, making sure that resources are available in very easy to understand manners and resources, and a diverse range of media. Having appropriate announcements in shelters including interpreters and if need be, closed captioners, things along those lines. Evacuations having accessible buses and operational Paratransit during, before and after natural disasters for evacuation, and also having coordinated evacuations of nursing homes or other areas that might have a higher concentration of people with disabilities that would otherwise be potentially stranded. So for shelters, which Alameda is looking at, and it's certainly something to look at in the future, shelters 05/30/18 Page 7 of 32 | CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2018-05-09.pdf |