Hurricane Katrina - Important Info for People with Disabilities from Nat'l Org. on Disabilities

The National Organization on Disabilities (N.O.D.) Emergency Preparedness Initiative (EPI) announces immediate deployment of their Special Needs (SN) Rapid Assessment Team for Hurricane Katrina

Project Ground Ops Title: N.O.D./EPI's S.N.A.K.E. (Special Needs Assessment 4 Katrina Evacuation) Team

Recognizing that the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the special needs and disabled communities would be catastrophic, N.O.D. President Michael Deland immediately sought to gain access to the Gulf region to assess delivery of services and recovery efforts for the nearly 250,000 men, women, and children with disabilities living in the impacted area. It is the goal of N.O.D. to capture any immediate actionable issues and provide this information to officials coordinating the response and recovery efforts.

Hilary Styron, Director of EPI received authorization to deploy four rapid assessment teams consisting of nationally recognized special needs emergency management practitioners into the Gulf region impacted by Hurricane Katrina. EPI SNAKE teams will be one of the first outside organizations to ever be allowed on disaster-impacted locations to assess these issues.

Upon deployment, the teams will quickly gather information about the impact and service delivery to those with disabilities, seniors, and medically managed persons. This is an extremely fast in and out operation with the singular goal of capturing systemic points of failure or immediate actionable correction to elevate suffering.

EPI has been monitoring the disaster from pre-event and now into the recovery operations. It has become clear that the disability and special needs communities were woefully under-prepared individually. EPI has been in touch with several of the authorities within the effected region, as well with Federal entities in Washington DC. At this point there appears to be no singularly coordinated special needs response.

Data gathered will include:

· information about the response efforts, how they responded,how gaps were filled in the immediate sense and in the long term
· information on long-term recovery efforts currently be put inplace and those gaps that exist and how they are being addressed
· information to support or disprove "stories" that emerge fromthe SN community

Upon completion of analysis of the collected data, all findings will bedocumented for EPI to rapidly distribute these action items throughout all Federal, state, and local authorities coordinating response and recovery efforts.

EPI has contracted with Elizabeth Davis of EAD & Associates, LLC to lead this effort.
Logistic and operational support will be provided by Steve Kuhr of Strategic Emergency Group, LLC.

EPI is currently providing outreach, awareness, and education via the congressionally designated earmark through the U.S. Department of Education Rehabilitation Services Administration. Within the approved grant deliverable project area is a component for tracking special needs in disasters.

Additional information will be made available at www.nod.org/emergency <http://www.nod.org/emergency>

Contact Person:

Hilary Styron, Director
Emergency Preparedness Initiative
National Organization on Disability
910 16th Street, NW 6th Floor
Washington, DC 20006
StyronH@nod.org

HQ Office: 202-293-5960
Direct: 202-955-6320
TTY: 202-293-5968
Fax: 202-293-7999

http://www.nod.org/emergency


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