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| TX: 26.09.05 - Disabled in a Hurricane PRESENTER: LIZ BARCLAY |
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| Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. BARCLAY We've been hearing over the past few days about the massive relief operation underway across Texas and Louisiana in wake of Hurricane Rita. The storm was less severe than expected and less devastating than Hurricane Katrina but it has left behind a trail of damage and flooding. America's disability groups are among the organisations involved in the relief operation. Following Hurricane Katrina there were concerns that disabled and elderly people were among the last to be evacuated and the first to feel the brunt of the disaster. On Radio 4's In Touch programme, shortly after Katrina struck, we heard from Roxanne Homstead, a visually impaired woman who taught Braille in New Orleans and evacuated to Memphis, Tennessee ahead of the hurricane. But, as she explained, she wasn't sure about the fate of some of her clients. HOMSTEAD I'm missing several people - several clients - elderly - very disadvantaged people and I don't know and the hardest part is not knowing. I found one but that's the only one I've found so far. And I've been searching the Red Cross databases but if you're a person with a disability you are best to get out early, if you're going evacuate, because the sighted able bodied people that can help you can help you early before they start to panic. And so I'm afraid that my clients and friends didn't get out soon enough. BARCLAY Roxanne Homstead, and we'll be catching up with Roxanne in tomorrow's programme to find out how she's coping following her evacuation to Memphis. Joe Shapiro is correspondent from National Public Radio, who's been reporting on the experience of disabled people caught up in the hurricane and he's on the phone. Joe, we've been seeing pictures from both of the areas affected and clearly many, many lives have been devastated by recent events but what problems specific to people with disability have you come across? SHAPIRO Well there's yesterday in a story I quoted a disability attorney who said the people who were the least able to leave, the most likely to need rescue and the first to die were people with disabilities, either young disabled people or disabled elderly people. And that we saw three factors among the people who were the victims of this hurricane - race, poverty but also disability. So I was at the New Orleans airport where a hospital had been set up and I saw - afterwards I saw scores of wheelchairs that had been left behind - in order to get evacuated on a plane out people had to leave their wheelchairs and medical equipment, people had been told not to bring their service animals, to leave medications behind. BARCLAY And in terms of evacuation disabled and of course as you've said elderly with disabilities they've had the biggest challenge getting away from areas affected, we have heard some pretty horrific cases where elderly clients have actually been left behind in care homes. SHAPIRO Terrible stories. The owners of the St Rita's Nursing Home in New Orleans made a fatal decision, they thought it would be safer if their residents stayed in the nursing home and to try to wait out the storm, instead 34 people have died and the owners have now been charged with negligent homicide - 34 counts - one for each body recovered. But then last week the owners of an assisted living and nursing home facility near Houston made the right decision - they put them on - their residents - on buses and headed toward Dallas and there was a tragic bus fire and at least a couple of dozen of the residents died on that bus. BARCLAY Joe, thank you, just stay with us. One organisation in the United States which worked to make sure that disabled people were evacuated from the area is the National Organisation on Disability and Hilary Styron is from the emergency preparedness team. Hilary, what's the latest news from Texas, how did the evacuation of disabled people go this time? STYRON Well I would say that it went a little better than it had in Katrina - before Katrina had struck. When Rita was coming in towards Texas the government officials - state and local as well as the federal - realised early on that that population across the state needed to be evacuated and moved to safer facilities inland or perhaps another state. And officials early on had identified over 1700 special needs facilities, that included nursing homes and hospitals, that sat in the direct path and they needed to move those to other available space in safer areas across the state. BARCLAY Well I know that Secretary Chertoff, the Secretary for Homeland Security, did call on the person responsible for the preparations for Hurricane Rita to add someone with specialist knowledge of disabilities to his staff, do you think that this is all part down to lessons from the experiences of New Orleans? STYRON It absolutely is, it's actually as a direct result of what we experienced in Katrina. The relief efforts and emergency evacuation efforts for the disability and special needs population for Katrina was not well managed and not well thought out in advance and arranged. So as a direct result of that many of us here in Washington and on the ground in New Orleans did get with Secretary Chertoff and urged him to make this something that would be available to the PFO [phon.], so that we could coordinate better the needs of the people with disabilities and of special needs populations during evacuation, rescue and recovery, absolutely. BARCLAY Now I know that the number of people with disabilities in these states is particularly high, very briefly, what are the long term problems that will need to be addressed? STYRON Well long term problems for people with disabilities in both of these areas - Katrina and Rita areas - will be their intermediate housing and intermediate care needs, as well as the long term housing and care needs that they will face. Accessing the systems and having accessible housing available to these individuals is critical at this point, as you know there's a housing shortage in both of these hard hit areas and that is going to be one of the toughest things to solve is this transitional housing and access to medical care. And returning these individuals back to their daily life activities and their independent living situations, rather than institutionalising. BARCLAY Hilary, thank you very much indeed for joining us and thank you too to Joe Shapiro. Back to the You and Yours homepage The BBC is not responsible for external websites |
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