What happens to people with disabilities in natural disasters?
At least three disabled people have died in the L.A. fires. Research shows people with disabilities are up to four times more likely to die in natural disasters.
Jan. 21, 2025, 3:38 PM CST
June Isaacson Kailes lives 8 or 9 miles away from the evacuation zone for the Los Angeles wildfires. But even before the fires started, she had plans for how she’d escape in the event of a disaster.
Isaacson Kailes, who has cerebral palsy, uses a mobility scooter and has a ramp so it can be put in her car or disassembled and placed in her husband’s vehicle. In a worst-case scenario, she’d keep it at home and leave without it.
“I’ve also practiced getting out of here with a scooter and going up a significant hill, for example, if there was flooding or there was a tsunami,” Isaacson Kailes, a disability policy consultant who works with individuals, organizations and governments about emergency planning, tells TODAY.com. “We have a chain ladder under the bed. … We’re on the second floor, so we could go out the window, and if it’s the only way out, we can probably figure out how.”
She knows where the three exits are in her condo building and has checked that there’s an emergency power backup to the garage door so it will open if the electricity fails. There’s also a crowbar under the bed if there’s an earthquake and they need to dig out of rubble.
“That probably overwhelms you,” she says. “This is my business. This is what I do, what I write about, what I train about, and I work with cities and states and towns about their plans (for emergency evacuation).”
Research shows disabled people are up to four times more likely to die in natural disasters, Dom Kelly, president and CEO of New Disabled South, tells TODAY.com. “It is common, and it is a result of a number of intersecting issues. Mainly we live in a society that doesn’t value disabled folks enough to include (them) in planning.”
Of the 27 people who have died in the L.A. fires, at least three of the victims had disabilities.
Anthony Mitchell used a wheelchair since having his leg amputated and didn’t want to leave his son, Justin Mitchell, who had cerebral palsy and couldn’t walk, according to NBC News. They died in the fires while waiting to evacuate.
Former child actor Rory Callum Skyes, who was blind and had cerebral palsy, also died after his mom was unable to stop the fire spreading at his house, according to past TODAY.com reporting. She had a broken arm, so she couldn’t lift him to help him evacuate.
As natural disasters become more frequent due to climate change, more people with disabilities are finding themselves in tough situations. One in four people in the U.S. has a disability, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That means, if you don’t have a disability yourself, you may have a family member, neighbor or friend with one who could be significantly harmed by a future natural disaster, experts say.
Who helps disabled people during natural disasters?
Disability advocates believe it should be the responsibility of local governments to make sure people with disabilities are included emergency planning, using input from disabled people to make sure the plans address the problems they’re most likely to encounter.
But whether this is actually happening, who’s managing it, and how well it’s being done varies greatly across the country — even though poor planning makes it much harder for disabled people to survive these events.
Some local governments, such as in Los Angeles, have consulted with disabled people and relevant organizations to make sure they’re included in emergency plans, Isaacson Kailes says.
For example, the Disability Community Resource Center, an L.A.-based nonprofit that supports people with disabilities living independently, has a relationship with the local government to address disaster planning. The DCRC helps with general preparedness, communicating with emergency operations during disasters, commenting on plans as they’re developed and more.
Another organization that helps disabled people during natural disasters is the Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies, which works with local governments, individuals, other nonprofits and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
“We administer the disability and disaster hotline, and through it, we have supported over 100 people with evacuation planning early on, making decisions of, ‘How soon should I evacuate? What do I need to evacuate?’” Germán Parodi, co-executive director of the Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies, tells TODAY.com. “We’re connecting them to resources like Red Cross shelters and supporting that their access needs are being met.”
The Centers for Independent Living, a network of federally funded, community-based nonprofits that help people with disabilities live independently, are another resource for both disabled individuals during and after disasters, as well as local governments.
The best-made disaster plans for disabled people are detailed, Isaacson Kailes says. For example, they should include steps to help people evacuate buildings or entire areas, numbers of accessible vehicles, how many people emergency services can reach, what an ideal response time could be, a list of accessible shelters and more.
“The government, the county, the city has mega responsibility for making sure that these things are … specifics in the plan and not vague,” she adds.
“It’s also on the government’s side to be more transparent with people and tell people when there’s no warning, like with these fires, or there is short warning, ‘We’re not going to be able to get you. We don’t have the response time to get to you,’” she says. “This is where you have to have your own plan.”
For these kinds of emergencies, individuals often need to think ahead for their own safety, and having more neighborhood-centric plans can be helpful.
“Part of this needs to be developing a culture of readiness (and) facilitating conversations … neighbor to neighbor,” Parodi says. “What are the needs that we have, and how are we going to support each other when disasters happen?”
The involvement of loved ones and neighbors can be life or death for disabled people in emergency situations.
Challenges during recovery for disabled people
When disabled people evacuate, they often struggle to find temporary housing that meets their needs.
“There’s data from the Census Bureau that actually shows that disabled people are more likely to face hardships after a major disaster, including and especially being displaced and not being able to return home,” Kelly says. “One issue would be: If you do evacuate, where do you go? Is it accessible?”
Isaacson Kailes says emergency plans should include guidelines for evaluating shelters prior to disasters and note which ones are accessible according to the Americans with Disabilities Act. But that might not always occur.
“(Governments) aren’t always very good at surveying for accessibility or they don’t know how,” she adds.
After disasters, people with disabilities may also lose electricity to power their medical devices or not have access to their equipment at all, the DCRC points out. Sometimes evacuation and temporary housing places them far from where they live, Parodi says.
“Oftentimes, the location of the available hotels that make contracts with FEMA are a (long) distance. It can be 30, 50 miles from the local supports from their neighborhoods,” he says. “This detaches people from local neighborhood support … from their communities, from their health care appointments.”
And during rebuilding efforts, affordable, accessible housing may not be considered in planning, and people with disabilities will struggle to find somewhere permanent to stay.
“We had hurricanes down here in the South in the fall, and we heard from a lot of disabled folks whose homes were destroyed. … They couldn’t find a place to live that they could afford,” Kelly says.
DCRC notes that accessible housing was already difficult to find in the Los Angeles area, with only 2-5% of new units dedicated to accessible housing.
“When people who were living independently in the community lose their home or when accessible housing is destroyed, a serious problem … develops where people are ‘temporarily’ sent to places like nursing homes and never leave,” the organization says.
Improved planning for disabled people
There are “pockets” of the U.S. that have thorough disaster management plans that include disabled people’s input, Parodi says.
“There is a growing interest and a growing recognition that to be successful, there needs to be collaboration with our community,” he explains. Inclusion of people with disabilities in emergency planning is “happening slowly, and it’s taken a lot of years to get (governments) to recognize the need, and disasters are showcasing more and more.”
Parodi hopes that in the future, emergency planning will occur more systematically and with federal funding.
“We all have different support needs,” he explains. “Some of us need help out of the bed and then we can be evacuated. So relaxing our expectation on the individual and building ways to support each other needs to start now.”