Incapacity amid catastrophe: Folks with disabilities are disproportionately impacted by pure disasters
Scammers could go round impacted neighborhoods posing as authorities officers or personal contractors requesting upfront funds for house repairs that by no means come to fruition.
“They go and prey on essentially the most susceptible folks,” mentioned Curtis Hill, the supervising advocate for outreach and catastrophe response for Incapacity Rights North Carolina, who has seen three hurricanes hit jap North Carolina prior to now eight years.
Trejo, from Los Angeles County, expects scams to proceed after the fires.
“In earlier conditions, we have now seen that particularly older adults and adults with disabilities could possibly be focused,” Trejo mentioned. “We’re already working to start out doing group schooling and outreach. We’ve been on that already for over per week, as a result of there was a lot lack of house.”
Specialists say the neglect of individuals with disabilities throughout pure disasters is largely attributable to their exclusion from the planning course of.
“Policymakers and authorities folks needs to be interacting with people with disabilities and their consultant organizations,” Stein mentioned. “They know their lives higher than anybody else does.”
In January, L.A. County officers proposed maintaining a database of addresses with residents who might need bother evacuating, an concept that some are skeptical about.
“What feels like an ideal and easy idea on paper … in reality is tremendous complicated and been met with resounding ‘no’ from all sides,” Robert Burress, program supervisor for emergency administration and catastrophe companies in South Carolina, advised NBC Information through electronic mail. “Particularly from the susceptible communities.”
Some members of the disabled group have been working to assist one another throughout disasters for years. The Partnership for Inclusive Catastrophe Methods, a disability-led nonprofit, maintains a hotline for folks with disabilities to request assist in a catastrophe.
Specialists encourage everyone, disabled or in any other case, to have a private preparedness plan within the occasion of a catastrophe.
“One of the best recommendation I may give to anybody disabled or not is first, know your neighbor,” Burress mentioned. “Extra occasions than not, your neighbors are those going via the identical catastrophe proper beside you. These are the folks that may verify on you quickest and know once you need assistance.”
CORRECTION (Feb. 23, 2025, 3:10 p.m. ET): A earlier model of this text misstated the neighborhood the place Reda Rountree lives. It’s Highland Park, not Altadena.
