|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
by Lisa Gauthier
When I read about the floods in Texas that killed 145 people and left 102 missing, one detail wouldn’t leave me: a volunteer firefighter asked for an emergency alert at 4:22 a.m., but the warnings didn’t go out until almost six hours later. Among those who died were 27 campers and counselors at an all-girls summer camp. Many more are still missing.
As a mother, grandmother, and the Chair of the Emergency Services Council in San Mateo County, that hit me hard. Those girls were off having what should’ve been the best week of their summer. But like many summer programs, the camp wasn’t ready for a disaster in the early morning hours.
Think about your neighborhood. The elderly couple down the street who rely on medical equipment. The family whose child uses a wheelchair. The neighbor who doesn’t speak much English. Or the coworker who depends on public transit. These people are all around us. And when disaster strikes, they are often the ones most at risk. Still, their stories rarely make the news.
Time after time, we see the same pattern. Older adults, people with disabilities, low-income families, and non-English speakers suffer the worst in emergencies. And yet, their struggles are treated like side notes.
We saw it after the Camp Fire in Paradise, 80% of those who died were over 65. After Hurricane Katrina, nearly three out of four deaths were people over 60. In the Los Angeles fires this year, a 67-year-old man in a wheelchair died alongside his son with cerebral palsy. Emergency help never came. Their story was buried beneath reports about celebrity homes and firefighting efforts.
When we don’t talk about these stories, we miss the full picture. And if emergency plans are based on a partial view of who actually needs help, people get left behind.
That’s why we’re trying to change things here in San Mateo County. This week, our Department of Emergency Management brought together nearly 30 community organizations that work with people who have access and functional needs. Together, we’re building our new Emergency Operations Plan around their input.
These groups understand the gaps that don’t show up in the headlines. They know what it’s like when the power goes out for days and a senior can’t use their medical devices. They know which messages reach families who don’t speak English. They know what happens when the bus doesn’t come and wheelchair users are stuck.
We need their voices in the room because they know what works and what doesn’t.
At the same time, resources are shrinking. California has one of the highest poverty rates among people with disabilities. Some states are losing millions in emergency planning support. FEMA is scaling back. And disasters keep coming.
So we need to be smart. We need to prepare in ways that center the people most at risk, not as an afterthought, but from the start.
I think about my children and the summer camps they‘ve attended growing up. Do those camps have working emergency plans? Are the teenage counselors trained? Would they know what to do in a flood or fire? Do they have a way to get everyone out safely?
These are real questions. And they matter now more than ever.
The next disaster will hit the Bay Area. It’s not a question of if—it’s when. And the people who already face the greatest challenges will bear the greatest burden.
We can’t keep letting their stories disappear. We have to make them part of the planning.
Because the people behind the numbers aren’t strangers. They’re our neighbors, our friends, our loved ones. They’re the kids we trust with summer programs. They deserve better than a line at the end of an article or a name in a forgotten report.
They deserve to be seen. And they deserve to be protected.
Lisa Gauthier serves as the chair of the San Mateo County Emergency Service Council and represents San Mateo County’s Fourth District on the Board of Supervisors, which includes the communities of East Palo Alto, Redwood City, and parts of Menlo Park.
