Emergency Evacuation Preparedness: Taking Responsibility For Your Safety A Guide For People with Disabilities and Other Activity Limitations
The September 11, 2001 Wake-up Call
No matter what laws and public policies say, it's up to us as people with disabilities to individually and collectively prepare for disasters. If we just rely on employers, building managers, or fire inspectors to make sure things are in place, it may or may not happen. It is not safe to assume that people with disabilities have been included in evacuation plans. People with disabilities must be assertive to ensure that our safety needs are included in all emergency planning.
For people with disabilities, the message is clear. We need to be keenly aware of the risks we face and our need to take responsibility for our safety.
We need to be proactive, and rely as much as possible on ourselves (and not to count on others), to find the exits and to make decisions about our safety. Hopefully this can be done in conjunction with, but possibly without the cooperation of the management of the places where we spend a great deal of our time (school, work, volunteer work, home). (Kailes 1996)
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