Of the many studies on Katrina’s aftermath that are sure to come, I wonder if any of them will look at how people with disabilities fared. “Not very well” would be my initial impression. It seems that if you were both poor and disabled, you were given the option of either fending for yourself at home or fending for yourself at the Superdome. Neither choice is very palatable. It’s disheartening to observe that the people who most urgently needed to be evacuated were the same people who were essentially abandoned. The city of New Orleans or state of Louisiana should have had a standing plan on how to safely move people with disabilities to safety. But this, as with so many other things, seems to have been beyond their capacity for planning.
I finally have my new TiVo set up, which is a good thing. I need my Daily Show fix or else I slip into a deep depression about the state of world affairs.
So, you live on the 19th floor in a downtown high rise. What’s your evacuation plan in the event of an emergency. A bit at the mercy of electricity and elevators aren’t you? What if it’s a snow/ice storm that nocks out electricity and keeps your nursing staff from reaching your building? These things can happen.