Subject Matter Expert: Blind and Visually Impaired

Awhile ago RantWoman received an email call for help from someone who has been asked to serve as a Subject Matter Expert for local first responders about issues to do with blind and visually impaired people for example in shelters after a disaster.


In honor of National disaster preparedness Month, RantWoman has seeded a topical mailing list with a whole bunch of comments and questions. Here, slightly edited is RantWoman's brain dump in response to the inquiry. RantWoman is thinking that some of the topics should have their own blog entries.
#NatlPrep #accessibility
Dear Subject Matter Expert:

--First, thank you so much for agreeing to serve in this role. RantWoman knows of at least one other blind person besides herself who in recent memory has done a lot about disaster preparedness; RantWoman is always, always really glad when new people get involved.

--Out of curiosity, who asked you to do this. I think it is great that someone asked, but I am just curious where this fits into things I know about disaster preparedness?

--What kind of timeline are you working with?

--You ask for info about best practices and then note a lot of things like Red Cross info that miss the point in big ways. But disasters happen lots of different ways and disaster preparedness professionals try all the time to learn from experience. You say there is no best practice literature but people in other parts of the country have experience with sheltering for hurricanes, winter storms, maybe also earthquakes in CA. Would it make sense to design a project to gather experience, say through different (organizations servng the blind and local chapters of blind consumer organizations) around the country about how blind and low vision people have experienced things to dowith shelters during emergency or disaster situations. I think this would be important research and might quite appropriately involve some kind of academic or other formal research connections.

--When I ask about shelters, I also mean kind of basic questions about what blind and low vision people in this area understand:

--go to shelter vs sheltering in place



--lots of different how do people get info questions: in print,

braille, accessible PDF, PSA, fairs and public events, trainings.



--how to find shelters



--service dogs. I know this is likely to be controversial, but i want people who rely on other kinds of service dogs to be accommodated as well as guide dogs. Shelter policies usually exclude pets and there is no legal way to ask about service dog training. But dogs are likely to find shelter environments stressful too. What is people's experience with this as they have used shelters? What other issues come up besides relief area?

--more people who ARE visually impaired than necessarily identify themselves that way. This can be things like people not having their glasses but it can also be other practical points.

--In general I want people to treat me with courtesy even before disasters so the habits are ingrained even if people are too stressed to think. For me that means:

--don't assume I am like everyone else. ASK ME.
--people have all kinds of preferences as far as getting around, different sighted guide techniques, room lighting, how much they are willing and able to step in and be useful if needed....

--Don't forget about hearing issues. I know lots of blind people who find it really hard to be in rooms full of lots of conversations around them. People in a shelter might want to choose locations that meet a mix of needs: noise, lighting, access to restrooms or exits to relieve a service animal.

--In a disaster, if no one in the room has sighted guide training, it might be good just to explain to a couple people what is helpful and to have people, either shelter staff or others be willing to learn on the spot.

--How will the work you are doing happen, in person or by conference call; what kind of team, who else is involved?

--I think it would be great to have a two-way information flow. Could you say post short summaries of issues and concepts and questions to this list after meetings or conference calls?

I would be curious to hear what others on this list think.

THANKS

(RantWoman)