The irony of this past week’s events aren’t lost on Dan and me, and they should not be lost on you either.
Here’s why.
Just as Dan and I were finalizing a virtual meeting later this month with our United States Senator Debbie Stabenow’s legislative aides to discuss two bills related to disaster planning for people with disabilities, the most unthinkable natural disaster slammed Dan’s home state of Iowa.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard of derecho
I mean, the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane (it’s called derecho) swept through the Hawkeye State, predominantly eastern Iowa where Dan’s family lives and primarily Cedar Rapids, where the company Dan works for remotely is located and his colleagues call home.
But the magnitude of this story and its devastating impacts were lost on the mainstream media. Indeed, as writer Cary Jordan’s article says, this marked A Historic Failure in Journalism.
So, as we got nothing from the media on this, here were the realities as described in a lengthy text by Dan’s sister, Dawn, who lives about 1/2 hour away from Cedar Rapids:
• Sustained winds of over 90 mph for over 45 minutes
• People had to drive all the way to Rochester, Minnesota, just to find a generator
• The closest gas station that actually had gas was over two hours away
• All corn crops are flat, more than 10 million acres
• EVERYONE has damage: trees, houses, sheds, equipment, vehicles
• We have no power, and little to no Internet or cell service
Details like these came in a text we received the day after the storm hit. But nothing hit us harder than the text we got five days later when she noted that estimated time for restoring their electricity was going to be August 24. Yes, that’s roughly two weeks without electricity.
Can you imagine?
All week long we’ve thought of and prayed for Dan’s family, friends and colleagues who are reeling from this devastating storm. And naturally, I of course was imagining what that would be like had that happened to Dan and me. Without electricity I have no way to charge my power wheelchair. This is the only way I can get around. Its wheels are my legs because my Multiple Sclerosis makes it so I no longer can walk.
Not a single step.
And this is why it was so ironic that we were scheduling a meeting with Senator Stabenow’s aides to talk about disaster planning for people with disabilities.
It’s time to take action
Disaster planning for people with disabilities actually was among the issues we discussed with our federal legislators and their aides when we were in Washington, D.C., in March. We were there on Capitol Hill with more than 300 MS activists nationwide as part of for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s annual Public Policy Conference.
Disaster planning is such an urgent issue for people with disabilities that we actually are joining other activists in urging our members of the Senate and House of Representatives to Co-Sponsor the Real Emergency Access for Aging and Disability Inclusion in Disasters Act (REAADI) and Disaster Relief Medicaid Act (DRMA). These two pieces of legislation are so important when you consider that:
• People with disabilities are two to four times more likely to be critically or fatally injured in a disaster.
• The adoption of “inclusive disaster strategies” would assure the inclusion of people with disabilities and older adults in the planning, response, recovery and mitigation of disasters, and is a recommended strategy for minimizing the most harmful effects of disasters on vulnerable populations.
• People eligible for Medicaid that are forced to leave their state due to a disaster should be assured of continued access to ongoing coverage, treatment and care in their adopted state.
To spell out what some of this means, the realities of dealing with the aftermath of any disaster can be trying for even the most able bodied of people. But as communities strategize how to respond to such disasters, it is vital that members of the disabled population have a place at the discussion table.
It would be easy enough to declare that a high school gymnasium serve as a shelter following a disaster, but what good is that if there are no handicapped-accessible restrooms? Or what if nothing was done to ensure that there were places to charge our wheelchairs, store our medicine that needs to be refrigerated or, God forbid, the facility wasn’t accessible to begin with?
As I indicated earlier, this is an issue we’ve discussed since March and it’s ongoing. Yes, things like derecho in Iowa keep the conversation going but it really demonstrates the urgency to move this forward because disasters happen in a moment’s notice. Again, the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane in landlocked Iowa.
Dan and I have a lot to discuss with Senator Stabenow’s aides later this month and look forward to finalizing similar appointments with the offices of our other U.S. lawmakers, Senator Gary Peters and Congressman John Moolenaar.
And we invite you to learn more about these and other legislative issues important to the nearly 1 million other people in the United States living with MS. Visit the National MS Society website become a voice for the MS community and advocate for change.