Helping the Disabled Prepare for a Crisis
If you or a loved one is disabled, you know first-hand how challenging life can be. Everything – even the most simple tasks – requires more time than it does for the able-bodied.
One of the many activities that becomes a huge challenge for those with disabilities is preparing for a crisis. Let’s face it – it’s difficult enough for those who are perfectly healthy.
So if you, a family member or a friend has a physical handicap, it’s important to get your house in order and make sure preparations are being made to handle a hunkering down or a bug-out situation.
Let’s take a look at a few things we need to consider in this situation:
-
- Getting around. If you’re bugging out in an emergency, your disabled person will require more time than most to get out of the house and into a vehicle. So, be ready to start this process sooner than you would otherwise.
-
- Equipment. Make sure all wheelchairs, walkers, ramps, crutches, canes, prosthetic limbs, oxygen tanks, etc., are in good working order, and keep spares whenever possible.
-
- Prescription Medications. The disabled person should explain to his or her doctor their interest in being prepared, and ask to be allowed to stay three months ahead on their medications.
-
- The Small Stuff. Some items the disabled person needs are small, but very important. Make sure to have extra inhalers, hearing aids and over-the-counter medications in a small bag that can be quickly added to a bug-out bag.
-
- Batteries. A number of the important items a disabled person may need require batteries, so have plenty of fully-charged spares ready to go as well.
-
- Generator. I realize this is also a piece of equipment, but I separated it because if you’re hunkering down, it may be crucial for the disabled person to have power for medical equipment. This could be a matter of life or death.
What other considerations would you recommend for the disabled to focus on prior to an emergency situation? I’m sure many of our readers would like to hear about them.
I am constantly preparing for our Home because I, my Wife, my Daughter, and a grandson are all DISABLED! I have turn-our House to act like the Alamo! We cannot Bug out as we are too disabled and aged to live our area. So I am saving our food, small Solar Panel 1500, lots of water & Sam’s Grocery Store has a Water Collecting Tank with a RAIN connection which I now need a Roof Eave connection unit and if you can send me the Email address I will buy one as I am not good enough to make one. But my Lawn man will fix it if I just buy one? My house has metal Hurricane covers all my doors & windows except for one to enter, and I have a SAFE room in case a Tornado or Hurricane, or some one too stupid to try to break in as I refixed the door with 3 looks 7 long screws, plus I spent 10 years in Combat & I have good weapons with plenty of ammo! I also just started using your Seed Vault & I now have 9 different plants in my inside seed growing items for two weeks planting. Please don’t forget to send me the address so I can buy a couple of Eave water drain so I can cannot to my Sam’s Barrels of water containers! I also bought 13 plastic Guarts containers so I can carry a plasiic carry whell-barrow to push water from my Lake to my Sam Cantainer for water Barrow but I will use the water from rain & if not unavailable I can use my Lake with your special Water Alexapue Filter so we will have plenty of water for cooking, cleaning & Drinking! I also bought a special growing a garden in my indoor garden along with my planting system in 13 Pots up on a table because I am 84 years young but cannot knee down & I have to do it on tables to garden it correctly! Thank you for your direction to be PREPARRED!
This is a great concern to me. I have a wife that requires thyroid medicine daily. It is one of those things she can’t get around with out it. There are a lot of people on medication for life where they can not do with out or survive without it. I only have three option here:
1.) hope that SHTF never occurs
2.) hope that this emergency ends within 60 days. This medication like others have a limited shelf life.
3.) realize that if SHTF continues for more than 60 days, then by the end of next month my wife will die and there is nothing I can do about it.
Like I said, there are people on medication for life and there is nothing you can do should this life saving medication runs out; except to watch your loves expire before you. There are people that are dependent upon other life saving medications like: insulin, heart meds, thyroid meds, high or low blood pressure medications and others. You an try and build a extra supply, but, sooner or later your supplies will run out and you will have to face the truth – only the truly healthy will survive.
There are those that are disabled. Depending upon their disabilities, their survival will depend on their abilities to function in a stress fill, hazardous environment. They may have to be content that there will be no help coming to rescue them unless they are in a hospital. Even then there may be no help coming. Case in point, hurricane Katrina. People died at the Super Dome because they didn’t have their medication on them or they simply ran out.
There were nursing homes in the New Orleans area where the infirm were forgotten and left behind. When remembered, these poor people were found still in the nursing home. Their bodies were still in their hospital beds floating in the water when the retaining walls broke and filled their nursing home. If you could see this horrible spectacle; you would feel as strong as I do that no one should ever be left behind again.
So I ask you this question, how many nursing homes are close to where you live? How many disable people do you know of that will need help should an emergency arise? Are you willing to assist? Can you assist? Do you have supplies to assist? If you say no to any of these questions then you know where you stand and where these disable people stand. Perhaps it is best that the disable do not hold false hopes in help arriving in time and that they can only count on themselves. It is after, will be the new norm.
You must decide where you will stand. You must decide how you will meet this deficiency. You must decide how you will survive when you require life saving medication on a daily basis. There will be a lot of grief because there are a lot of people out there that are not prepared to meet the unexpected. Will you be one of them? I hope not.
I get my Thyroxine from India, but I go through a guy in Las Vegas, but thos was a company from India I used to buy a lot from. See if they have your thyroid drug!!: https://pharmacysearch.net/BestLifeRx.com
My wife and I are physically challenged but we do have our BOB ready if need be, and we can make it around 60 days at home. It is something I think about, not being able to move as fast as I would like. 90% of our supplies are packed and ready at all times. At least every 90 days I do a recheck of all emerg equip.
I read an article in I think the NRA magazine and contacting the ad and was able to meet the owner and test rode one of the atw and it was totally awesome and it is a fine machine and it will change the lives of the handicapped that loves the outdoors. It is a little costly but very well made.
I have one living relative half a country away from me. I can only walk with leg braces and crutches. I cannot drive and I don’;t have a car. I certainly couldn’t carry any backpacks or anything else for that matter, but bugging out isn’t the only alternative. Sure, they’ll tell us all to vacate, but like the first poster, I live in the boonies and I’m prepared to take care of myself with no outside assistance for at least 3 months. That presumes I remain in my home and I’m so remote, I doubt anyone would stop to wonder if I’d got out OK. Getting out is the problem. Staying home where food, water, and shelter exist, is not the problem. I would be far more concerned about demands that I leave my home than being forgotten because I’m not close to anything. I can sleep in the dark and function carefully in daylight. I have a gun and a shoulder holster. I have a back up generator that lives inside my house so it won’t attract attention but it will keep my freezers going and my nighttime oxygen too. So, as a disabled person, I would have to say, Frank, that you underestimate us grossly. There is a tremendous courage in each one of us and we found with disability that there is a warrior in each of us, too. That warrior doesn’t usually get in anyone’s face, but it wakes up when we need to be our strongest. If an order to vacate is issued, I intend to turn off all the lights and sit very quietly until the area is declared cleared. Then I’ll be glad they’re all gone. My sublime confidence that I could survive comes from Homeland Security, in fact, that has designated these remote areas as survivor areas, where we might lose utilities when nearest cities are attacked, but our homes will remain intact and utterly livable. I suspect a lot disabled people will survive any number of nasty events and many full abled people will fall at first call.
Dear Frank,
HAPPY NEW YEAR! May God smile on you, yours and all our P4P family throughout the coming year.
This is a tough subject for many to even talk about, much less address objectively.
For many PC reasons it never made the news headlines, but a percentage of the deaths during major disasters were disabled persons.
During Katrina, Sandy and other major natural disasters there have been disabled persons who could not escape in a timely manner and were lost.
The most horrific survival decision a person or a family can face is making the cold hard choice that they must leave the critically disabled behind or perishing with them.
This sort of risk is highest during tornadoes, hurricanes and massive fast moving floods, such as are going on this very moment submerging whole cities along the Mississippi River and across the central states.
Having dealt with this in the real world our answer is PLANNING, PLANNING, PLANNING whatever the disaster or survival event and having trusted family, friends or neighbors who are committed to help the disabled get moved quickly to a place of safety!!!
When you are responsible for, or have a partially mobile disabled person in your home, whenever possible have one or two persons especially trained, practiced and assigned to move the disabled to safety immediately, while others remain trying to save, transport or defend survival gear, food and goods.
Make sure that police, fire and local city or county disaster management offices KNOW you have a disabled person and the nature of their special needs. They will respond quickly or as soon as possible depending on the scenario and the amount of devastation they are attempting to cope with.
As you clearly stated, those who are disabled already have learned how to adapt and get creative to accomplish not only simple daily issues, but surprise challenges as well. They can likely guild you in your proactive planning and should be respected for their valued abilities within your survival team. Only the totally immobile cannot contribute.
God Bless to All,
Orrin
Perhaps you should consult a spinal cord injured paraplegic or quadriplegic, before writing such a disappointing, superfluous and useless article on such an important subject. Personally, I moved to the country, on a road that is very defensible and stocking to survive in place, but my preps are not much different than anyone elses, because I never learned to back-up or back down and running away was never an option for me. “Be Prepared”, is the Boy Scout Motto and Survival of the most Fit is a law of nature. Knowing both are important. Personally, I want to be an asset, not somebody’s baggage, or Albatross. When SHTF, if you can’t at least lay down suppression fire, while your relatives escape, your just an anchor in their ass and all will perish. No self-respecting disabled person wants to sacrifice those he loves and continue to burden their survival chances.