Contemplating what to do in an emergency is never easy,
but it's a lot harder to figure things out
while the situation is happening.
Being prepared ahead of time can make all the difference.
In this episode, Hadley's Chief Program Officer, Ed Haines,
joins us as we discuss emergency preparedness.
I'm Ricky Enger,
and this is "Hadley Presents."
(pensive music)
Before we continue with today's episode,
we wanna acknowledge
that we often record shows weeks in advance
of their release.
In this case,
just days after recording the episode you're about to hear,
Hurricane Helene brought significant devastation
to areas within the southeastern United States.
And as this episode is set to air,
another hurricane is expected to make landfall in Florida.
If you're looking for ways to help
or if you're in the affected areas
and you need assistance finding resources,
please check our show notes for links,
including disasterassistance.gov
for information on available support.
Or you can call Hadley at 800-323-4238,
and we'll do our best to connect you
with the help you need.
And now, we return to our originally recorded episode.
Welcome to the show, Ed.
Thanks Ricky, it's a pleasure to be here.
Yeah, it's really good to have you.
It always is,
although we're not talking about warm
and happy stuff today. No.
I do actually think, though, that it does feel good,
or there's a sense of relief, at least,
to have certain things figured out ahead of time
to be able to mark off the list and say,
"I may not know everything,
but at least I have some ideas of what to do
if this particular thing happens."
Yeah, very true.
So yeah, that's what we're going to talk about today
is emergency preparedness.
So just thinking about what you will do
when something unexpected happens.
And it was interesting as we discussed this
because at first, it was like,
"Well isn't this a universal thing?
Like if you've watched the news
or you've read articles about what to do in an emergency,
you probably know what you need to."
But I'm not so sure that's true.
As we were discussing things,
are there some extra logistics
that vision loss brings to the table
as you're thinking about how to prepare?
Yeah, that's a great question, Ricky.
And I should say that for many years,
in my earlier days at Hadley,
I taught a course called Safety in the Home.
And it was about emergency preparedness.
And I know that emergency preparedness
involves a lot of common knowledge and general knowledge.
We think we know a lot about it,
but there is a facet of emergency preparedness
that people with disabilities,
or people with vision loss particularly,
have to think about.
And that is, is that in our everyday life,
we have a reasonable expectation
of accommodation in public places and services.
Those expectations, as we know,
are not always met. Yeah.
But we have an expectation of them.
In an emergency, in a natural disaster,
basically the ADA flies out the window,
the Americans with Disabilities Act.
We honestly won't have any reasonable expectation
of accommodation in public places or services.
People who are normally designated to help us out
are going to be busy or non-existent.
Places that normally provide accessible resources to us
may not be either reachable or they just may be gone.
So there's the...
It's incumbent on folks to be as knowledgeable as possible
about what resources they're going to have
in case of a natural disaster and where to find them.
So, it's all about prior planning and knowledge is power.
And that's especially true if you have vision loss.
Yeah, that makes sense,
'cause if you're in a situation
where it's every person for themself,
you have to know what you need and either where to find it
or maybe how to very succinctly ask for it, right?
Because if people are busy and they're overwhelmed,
it helps if you can voice what your needs are
and then figure out if they can get met.
That's very true, and as much as possible,
to be as independent and self-sufficient as you can
for meeting those needs.
There's a couple things you can do right off the bat
that can make a huge difference.
The first thing is, is that a lot of places where we live,
the risk level for natural disasters
has changed in recent years.
That's due to a number of environmental circumstances.
But areas that are previously
that weren't vulnerable to flooding
or weren't vulnerable to fires now are.
Yeah. So if you need to know
your neighborhood and your area's risk level,
it may have changed.
So, find out what that is.
And then if your vision has changed recently
and you've been comfortable with that risk level
prior to vision loss,
ask yourself honestly.
Okay, I live in an area
that it is prone to intermittent flooding.
That was okay with me when my vision was typical
because I knew I'd be able to cope.
Well, now that I've lost some vision, is that still okay?
Am I confident
that I can still do what I need to do to survive
in the case of the next flood?
So, know your area's risk level
and then know your own capacity to be comfortable with that.
The second thing you can do right out of the gate
is almost every municipality,
every county in the United States
has some sort of emergency management coordinator.
And it doesn't hurt to know who that entity is,
if it's a group or a single person,
and to make yourself known to that entity,
and to ask them questions ahead of time, like:
What are your plans if my street floods?
Where are we in terms of priority for rescue, et cetera?
And if you belong to a peer support group,
a vision loss support group,
if there's a local emergency management coordinator,
in my experience,
those individuals are more than happy
to come to talk to your group
and sort of educate you as a community.
So, it doesn't hurt to find out who that entity is
and try to engage with them.
Yeah, that's a really good point
and one that I hadn't really thought about.
So, that's going on my list as well.
And I've been in my neighborhood for a number of years
and just hadn't considered it.
So, the more you know.
When we are watching the news, it's hurricane season here,
so this comes up a lot right now.
And they always say, "Make sure that you have your go-bag,
or your bug-out bag,
or whatever it is that you're calling it.
Make sure you have that ready."
And so I'm wondering if there are things beyond,
I guess, just the traditional stuff that you should have:
food, water, maybe a change of clothing,
some hygiene items, stuff like that.
What beyond those things should we think about
with vision loss?
Does that change how we prepare these go-bags?
I think it might.
People with vision loss often use adaptive aids
to make sure that they can do whatever they need to do.
And I'm talking about magnifiers,
canes. Right, yeah.
Even mobile devices.
So, if you can afford to or if you have the ability to,
it doesn't hurt to have extras of some of those things,
like an at least an extra cane
or extra magnifiers if you're using them.
If you are someone with hearing loss
and you have a hearing aid, you use a hearing aid,
they're often very expensive.
But if you have a cheaper version,
doesn't hurt to pack one of those.
So, if you can have duplicates
of some of those critical adaptive aids
that you use to accommodate your vision,
I would recommend packing those.
Yeah, and that can be hard if you're...
It's like you said, it's hard enough to afford one of them,
but the approach I tend to take is for my cane, for example,
I have an old beat-up one that's still functional.
I wouldn't use it for daily use,
but it is still good enough for, well, in an emergency,
and I guess the same could be true for magnifiers.
Maybe you've got that drawer full of stuff
and you have the one that,
"This doesn't work for me every day,
but in a pinch it's still gonna give me what I need," right?
Yeah, exactly.
And in my experience,
folks usually have a drawer full of magnifiers.
Yeah. So,
since we're talking about magnifiers,
it also needs to be said
that most of those have integrated lighting with them.
They're lighted magnifiers. Right.
So, batteries are gonna be critical as well.
If you have an old magnifier
that you want to include in your to-go-bag,
it wouldn't hurt to keep some extra batteries for that,
especially if those batteries
have been sitting in there a long time,
it's likely that they're going to be worn out.
Yeah.
What about other technology?
We talked about mobile phones,
and I will be the first to say
that I depend on my phone a lot,
but are there things that we should be thinking through?
If I'm depending on my iPhone for everything,
is that gonna be sufficient for me
to grab that during an emergency,
or are there some other things I should consider?
Well, that's a good question,
because phones are only as good as cellular networks.
Right. And data services, right?
Now, if those are disrupted,
if your power's out and your router's not working,
or cell towers are down
and you're not getting a signal,
a lot of the apps that you might use,
particularly for navigation and communication,
are no longer gonna be sufficient.
So, it's not a bad idea
just to be honest about your dependency on tech,
if you use a lot of tech to accommodate your vision loss.
And if you can think of workarounds for that tech,
they may not be as convenient,
they may not be as easy to use.
It's not a bad idea to have a list of those in your head.
And if you haven't done that in a while, to practice them,
I'll just give you an example, for instance.
If you're using your phone for navigation
or GPS, for instance,
can you use a Braille compass or a talking compass?
There's other ways to make sure you know where north, south,
east, and west are.
And that may be really critical when you hear on the radio,
"Okay, everybody head south
because the disaster is approaching from the north,"
so- Right, yeah.
Yeah, so if you are dependent on tech,
we all are right now,
but if there are ways that you can do things without tech
that you can have as a backup,
that's not a bad idea to have those handy
and have that knowledge handy.
Yeah, I think that's good advice no matter what,
because tech is as good as its battery
in a lot of cases- Right.
And it might not be an emergency,
but being out and about and suddenly you're without it,
like, "Hmm, do I have those backup skills?"
So yeah, that's important.
What about things like figuring out what's in your go-bag?
Maybe you've thrown a lot of stuff in there,
and now you're pulling things out
and all these packages feel the same.
What is going to help with that sort of thing?
Organization, really.
And when someone loses vision,
usually they find out pretty quick
that being organized is a big help
in terms of just getting things done
and getting things done as quickly as you used to.
And that's true for anything in your go-bag,
particularly if you have food items
and different types of bandages
or whatever you decide to put in there.
And there are lots of lists out there, by the way,
for what to put in a go-bag. Right.
But, they should be labeled in a way
that you can quickly, not just slowly,
but quickly access them
and get exactly what you need right away.
So you need to label them in a way
that you can identify them easily,
either with large print or Braille.
You may be having to look through that bag in the dark,
and if your vision is limited anyway
and light's not so good,
you need to find a bandage really quick or an aspirin,
have them labeled in some way that you can find them
or organized in some way
that you can put your hand on them right away.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I was talking to someone recently,
and she mentioned even having a roll of tape or something,
where if you are away for a little longer than a night,
or a day, or whatever it is,
having ways to mark things that you get
that may not be in your go-bag,
maybe you're in a hotel or something like that,
and you need to label the shampoo and conditioner.
Just something that you can use
to mark things that aren't marked already,
whether that's a 20/20 pen
or, again, a roll of tape or what have you.
So yeah, there's a lot you can do.
What about things like meds, and eye drops,
and things like that?
Are there any special things we should think about,
or just kind of knowing that you're gonna need some on hand?
Well, I guess yes to both of those questions.
If you've lost vision because of diabetes or glaucoma,
then it's possible that you are taking medication
for both of those conditions,
and you're gonna want replacements for those.
If, particularly with regard to diabetes,
if you are using regularly a blood sugar meter test strips,
things like that,
you'll need to have replacements for those,
or at least have a place in your to-go-bag for those things.
Eye drops for glaucoma.
There's some medications that you might need
to actually keep cold,
so then you'll have to have a cooler on hand
and a supply of ice or some kind of coolant
to keep that stuff at the right temperature.
So yeah, I think there are some considerations.
If you've lost vision due to a medical condition
that does require you to keep track of medication levels,
and sugar levels, and that kind of thing.
Makes sense, yeah.
A lot of what we've talked about so far
is very physical, tangible stuff.
So, various items and various things that you can touch,
or mark, or see, or whatever. Yep.
But I think information is equally as important
as the devices or items that you carry with you.
So, I'm wondering if we can just talk
about the kinds of info that you should have on hand
and maybe how you go about doing that.
Sure, we've all heard that we need
to keep an emergency contact list, for instance.
And most of us assume that that contact list,
and I know mine is...
It's on the phone, right?
Okay, it's on my phone. Yep.
But my phone is also locked.
So, if I've been injured in an emergency
and I'm unable to unlock my phone for some reason,
and someone who's assisting me
needs to find out where my emergency contacts are,
they're not gonna be able to find them.
So, it's helpful to have a printed
or Braille version as well.
Just don't assume you can access your contact list
on a mobile device.
Other people need to access it, too.
And then it's helpful for someone else, other than yourself,
to have a copy of that list.
Maybe one of the...
A relative or a friend who lives some distance from you
because your list may not be secure.
You may have lost it,
and in a hurry to leave, it doesn't matter.
And you're not gonna remember all of those numbers.
So, if you have someone you can call, or contact,
or go to that has a copy of your list,
that's a big help, too.
Yeah, that's a good point.
And actually, we do have a series of workshops at Hadley,
and it's the Safety Basics Series.
And in that series,
there is actually a contact list template.
It is fully accessible, of course,
and it gives you a nice place to start,
where you fill out that info,
and then you can print it, you can emboss it,
you can do whatever.
So, maybe it's there on your device,
but it's also available to someone else as well.
Talking about mobile phones,
there is the Medical ID
and other stuff that's there in your phone.
And theoretically, the Medical ID,
which has all of your meds, info, and such,
should be visible on the lock screen.
But the problem can be,
if you are using certain types of accessibility options,
like if you have VoiceOver or Talk Back on that Medical ID,
you're not going to be able to tap on it.
You have the gestures for double tapping
for these mobile screen readers,
and not everyone is going to know that.
Right. And so,
just being aware of that,
it's a good idea to have that filled out,
but also know that if you're incapacitated,
you might not be able to explain,
"Oh, here's what you need to do to unlock my phone
or to view that stuff."
No, that's absolutely true.
And thank you for pointing out the Safety Basics Series
that we do have on our website,
a series of workshops all about the subject today.
And I recommend anyone who's interested in exploring further
the topic of emergency preparedness to go check those out.
It really is a good series of just basic stuff
that you can do,
and there are some resource lists there as well.
So, really useful, we'll have that in the show notes.
So, let's think about if something is happening
and you're not able to shelter in place.
Maybe you have to evacuate for a fire, or a hurricane,
or something where you have a little bit of time
to then get out,
what are some things we need to think about
in terms of getting out safely?
Good question, and it really comes down, again,
in my mind, to self-sufficiency
as a person with a vision impairment.
So normally, you'd want to have two places to go
if you need to evacuate.
And one would be close by,
and that's where your local emergency management coordinator
could help you out.
You contact them, find out where the evacuation centers are,
and then another place would be some distance away,
maybe a friend or relative family member
that if the entire community is in jeopardy,
you have somewhere where you know you can go.
Right, right. And here's the issue
with self-sufficiency.
I don't drive, for instance,
so if you're not driving regularly,
we tend sometimes to sort of lose track
of how to get where we need to go.
We're letting other people do it.
Uber, right?
Uber drivers, or taxi drivers, or paratransit, et cetera.
But I think it's critical
if we have our evacuation destinations in mind
to actually know for ourselves the actual route, the roads,
the turnings, the mileages, the landmarks, et cetera,
to get us to where we want to go.
The point is, you don't wanna depend on someone else
to wayfind for you then.
You need to be able, as much as possible,
to give them precise directions on how to get there.
That means go two miles down this street,
take a right on this street,
and really have it in your head.
Have that map in your head
of how to get to your evacuation destination.
Don't rely on anybody else.
It's easy to do that, you get in a pattern of it.
I know I do, so that's my advice there.
What about if you are in like a complex,
maybe it's assisted living,
or an apartment complex, or whatever,
are there things that you should know,
maybe not just for yourself,
but perhaps the building has an emergency plan,
and a lot of times they're like,
"Oh, yeah, didn't you see the signs?"
"Well, no, not so much."
That's right.
Yeah, a lot of emergency, and this is classic.
The emergency evacuation plans
are in a sort of a small little plaque somewhere
at the end of a hallway. Yeah.
And if you don't know what those plans are
and you're not aware where the plaque is,
you're not gonna really be up to date.
A lot of apartment buildings do have emergency plans.
And it may, in fact, in some housing units,
there might be a person even in your hall
that's been designated to go door to door
to alert fellow residents.
So again, this is all about knowledge is power
and self-sufficiency,
find out ahead of time
what those emergency evacuation plans are
in case of a fire or a flood, et cetera.
And we all know, we're told,
"Don't get in the elevator in case of a building fire."
So if elevators aren't functional,
it's really helpful for you to figure out:
Can you navigate those stairs safely?
Do you need to practice navigating the stairs?
Do you need to find where the stairwell is,
and maybe do a couple dry runs
to make sure that you've got it down?
But you may also have to stay in your apartment
and wait for assistance.
And if that's a choice that you're gonna have to make,
what's the best way to do that?
Do you hang an alert out outside of your window
to let people know you need assistance?
Right. How do you do that?
Et cetera, so again, this is all prior planning,
but you're right.
Many of the cues for building plans are visual,
and they're obscure.
And so you're gonna have to be proactive
to find out what those plans are.
Yeah, and you said proactive,
and that made me think of something else as well.
Again, it's hurricane season here,
and we often see on the news
someone who has elected to stay behind,
and, "I wanna stay with my stuff,
I wanna stay in my house,"
and then things go awry and they need to be rescued.
I'm wondering...
I feel like this is an individual choice,
but do you think now differently
about whether you would choose to shelter in place,
or whether you think,
"Maybe it is actually safe for me to get out ahead of time
because I can't necessarily depend
on other people to rescue me,
and I may have some additional logistics to think through.
So, maybe I ought to just evacuate in the beginning
before things get too bad."
Yeah, I personally err on the side of caution.
But I will say,
there will be notices if the natural disaster
or the emergency is...
If there's enough time,
there'll be notices from authorities
about when it's time to evacuate.
Right, yeah. And my advice
would be do not ignore those notices.
If you decide to shelter in place
and you just don't wanna leave your home,
if the disaster then occurs in your neighborhood
or in your area,
emergency personnel are going to be overwhelmed.
So, rescue may not always be quick.
That's something
you're gonna have to make a personal decision about.
Yeah, and I think as things are happening,
you wanna be able to keep up to date with what's going on.
And that, in and of itself, is a chore sometimes
because if you watch the news,
you are presented with an, "As you can see here,
this is the trajectory
of whatever this thing is heading your way,
and that may not be accessible to you anymore."
So, what are some ways then to keep updated
on what's going on in a way that is gonna work for you?
Good question.
And you're right, you're watching the TV,
and they're pointing to a map, right?
They're not- Yep.
I have a weather radio, an NOAA,
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration
weather radio on hand.
It has a hand crank, so it'll power up without a battery,
and I can monitor weather on that if I need to.
You can get a sign up for mobile phone alerts
and warnings about severe weather in your area.
And then there's the FEMA app,
the Federal Emergency Management Agency,
and you can download that app on your phone
and get alerts there as well.
So, there's other places than just the television
and your sort of local radio weather person
who may or may not be giving you helpful information
in a non-visual way.
So, the other thing I would say
is if you are gonna use a weather radio,
or use the FEMA app, or whatever,
practice using those first.
You don't want to get familiar with that device or that app
right in the middle of a disaster.
You wanna make sure that you're comfortable operating both.
Again, it comes down to prior planning,
and it won't take long,
but it doesn't hurt to make sure
that you can use those informational resources
efficiently and quickly.
Yeah, and I'm kind of amazed at the features
that are available on these weather radios now.
It used to be just a radio,
and you might have access
to some short wave bands or whatever,
but now, they have flashlights on them,
they have ways that you can flash SOS signals,
and they have like a power bank.
So you can charge your mobile phone, for example,
and that can be really helpful.
So it's useful even just beyond
being able to keep you up to date with what's going on,
which I think is so helpful.
So once you make it through whatever the emergency is,
now it's time to think about what comes after.
Are there other things that we should think about
now that things are over,
it's not immediately back to normal, right?
Right, and a lot of this now comes down
to just practical things
that everyone's going to have to pay attention to.
Your home may not be safe.
Don't return to your neighborhood
until authorities announce it's safe to do that.
All that stuff, and we can get that from a lot of sources.
Right. But,
if you do have some vision loss,
of course be aware that familiar landmarks
and paths of travel,
they might be damaged or obstructed.
Yeah, yeah. Don't expect
to be able to just forge right ahead
with your cane or without
or with your guide dog in the same way you used to.
One thing I do wanna mention, in the aftermath of disaster,
mail can be halted for days or weeks, so-
Right. It might be helpful
to think about how you get things like Social Security,
or federal benefits,
or any other kind of checks that come in that you depend on
for your livelihood.
Are those all deposited electronically,
or are you dependent on the mail?
And if mail's disrupted,
what are you going to do in the interim?
So, that's just one quick suggestion.
Yeah, even medications.
A lot of people get mail order medications.
Yes. And so knowing
to contact your healthcare provider to figure out:
How am I going to get this emergency supply
if my mail order stuff is not coming?
Yeah, absolutely.
So, there are lots of considerations.
It depends on the disaster
and it depends on what authorities are telling you to do.
And a lot of this is not vision-specific at this point,
but definitely pay attention
to what your federal emergency management coordinator
is telling everyone.
And don't assume that your home
or your neighborhood's gonna be the same when you get back.
Well, I'm glad we had a chance
to talk about a lot of this.
Again, it's never comfortable to think about.
No. It's one of those like,
"Ah, it'll never happen,"
and I feel like we all think that,
"It's not gonna happen to me.
That's a thing that happens to other people."
But, if we are ready ahead of time,
if we're prepared as much as we can be,
then the things that we haven't thought about
won't be piling on top of all the things
that we could have done but didn't, right?
So- Exactly, exactly.
Yeah, this has been really good.
In our show notes,
we will have a link to our Safety Basics Series,
and in that series,
it's our video workshops,
and they will also have resources down below the workshop
that you can check out as well.
So, there are things like what to put in your go-bag
and the contact list.
A lot of the things that we've mentioned here,
you'll find there.
And of course,
you can always call us to talk some things through as well.
Ed, thank you so much for dropping by
and going through some of this.
It's been informative.
Well, it was a pleasure, Ricky,
and you're right, it is an important topic.
So, I encourage people again
to check out our Safety Basics Series,
and then of course to call us at Hadley
if they have any other questions.
Yeah. Thanks so much.
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