Communication is about ensuring people receive and understand information in accessible ways.

• People who use sign language
• People who have limited English proficiency (LEP)
• People who have limited ability to:
  • Speak → and use a communication device
  • See → and use Braille, tactile signage, or large print text
  • Hear →  and rely on closed captioning or reading lips
  • Understand → and need information in plain language

Consider people with communication needs who may have limited ability to:

• Hear announcements
• See signs
• Understand messages
• Verbalize concerns

Examples of Communication in Practice:

• Alerts/warnings, press conferences, and emergency information
  • Is in plain language that people can take action on
  • Has sign language interpreters in picture and closed captioning
  • Available in multiple formats (large print, Braille, screen-reader accessible, image descriptions, etc.)
• Ensuring at shelters or points of distribution (PODs) 
  • Messaging is available in plain language, large print, and pictograms
  • Sign language interpreters are available
  • Other commonly used language translation is available 
  • Intake processes document people’s communication methods

Maintaining health is about ensuring continuity of health and medical-related needs.

Considering people who need: 

• Specific medications (or temperature regulated meds)
• Supplies (wound care, urinary, etc.)
• Services (personal assistant services, behavioral health, dialysis, etc.)
• Durable medical equipment (custom wheelchair, walker, oxygen, hearing aids, etc.)
• Power for life-maintaining equipment (breathing machines, infusion pumps, power wheelchairs, etc.)
• Diet / nutrition accommodations (thickened liquids, gluten-free, kosher, halal, diabetes restrictions, etc.)

Maintaining health means: 

• Maintaining current and chronic health conditions at the level they were before disruption
• Minimizing preventable new medical conditions 
• Avoiding worsening health status 
• Avoiding institutionalization

Examples of Maintaining health in Practice: 

• Identifying and addressing time-sensitive health maintenance risks
  • Medications refills and temperature controlled meds
  • Oxygen
  • Dialysis
  • Insulin
  • Wound care supplies
• Replacing equipment and supplies 
  • Partner organizations (CILs, VOADs, etc.)
  • Suppliers
• Creating processes at shelters that prioritize people who need to charge life-sustaining equipment and mobility devices.

Independence is about ensuring people have what they need to live their lives as they choose.

Considering the needs of people who function independently with assistance from:

• Mobility devices 
• Assistive technology 
• Vision aids
• Communication support 
• Service animals
• Personal assistant services
• Ensuring people are not separated from their mobility devices, assistive technology, and/or service animals.
• Avoiding institutionalization.

Examples of Independence in Practice: 

• Ensuring people stay with their mobility devices and service animals (during evacuations and at shelters)
• Supporting people who may have been separated from personal assistant services or other personal care support
  • Do with, not for
  • Always ask 
  • Respect the person’s wishes
• Using the social model of disability 
• Ensuring practices are not inadvertently leading to people with disabilities being institutionalized
  • Example: Shelters are closing but someone who uses a wheelchair is the last person in the shelter because their home became inaccessible. This can often lead to someone being sent to a nursing home rather than a hotel room with personal assistance services.

Support, Safety, Self-determination is about ensuring people have the adequate support to stay safe while respecting consent, dignity, and choice.

Support = helping people in the ways they want

Support people who 

• Have been separated from mobility devices or caregivers in the ways they want
• Find it difficult to adjust to new or strange environments 
• Have difficulty understanding or remembering
• Have experienced trauma

Safety = creating environments where disabled people can survive and stabilize in the most integrated setting

Safety means ensuring disabled people are safe without losing autonomy, rights, or dignity. 

• Physical safety during evacuations (keeping people with their equipment)
• Safety in shelters (accessible cots, wheelchair accessible bathrooms)

Self-determination = respecting disabled people’s right to autonomy 

Self-determination means having the authority, freedom, and support to make your own decisions about your life.

• Where you live
• Who assists you
• What risks you take
• How you navigate emergencies

Examples of Support, Safety, Self-determination in Practice:

• Support in shelters
  • Providing an autistic person a quiet space
  • Helping someone who needs personal assistant services
  • Talking to someone who is feeling overwhelmed or confused by a new environment or schedule
•  Safety in shelters
  • Accessible pathways
  • Tactile signage
• Self-determination 
  • Decision to evacuate or leave shelter
  • Who helps, with what, and when
  • The right to refuse help

Transportation is about ensuring people can evacuate, travel to services, and get to emergency locations using transportation that meets their functional needs.

Consider transportation needs of people who

• Do not drive 
• Do not have a vehicle or an accessible vehicle
• Do not have a support network or people nearby
• Rely on public transportation
• Are not connected to social services
• Do not have resources for transportation (e.g., gas money)

Consider transportation needs when: 

• Evacuating 
• Relocating 
• Getting to shelters, points of distribution, resource centers
• Returning home

Examples of Transportation in Practice:

• Providing wheelchair accessible transportation options
• Placing shelter and POD locations on public transportation routes, nearby accessible stops
• Identifying transportation needs for returning home
• Paratransit continuing and expanding services during disasters
  • Note: often not the case