Audit: California plans leave out disabled
LOS ANGELES — California emergency officials are continuing to overlook the state’s most vulnerable people, including those with disabilities, as they make preparations for inevitable wildfires, floods and other disasters, according to a state audit released this month.
Residents who don’t speak English have been unable to find information in their language. Individuals who use wheelchairs or rely on electricity to power lifesaving equipment have found themselves unable to move and cut off from the outside world, trapped in part, the audit suggests, by state and county leaders’ inability to think ahead for emergencies.
The 145-page audit focused on the emergency alert, evacuation and shelter plans in place for the California Office of Emergency Services and Ventura, Sonoma and Butte counties ahead of their respective wildfire disasters in 2017 and 2018.
“Given the weaknesses we identified in the three counties’ plans and the struggles local jurisdictions have had in assisting people with these needs,” the audit said, “the state must take a more active role in ensuring that local jurisdictions maintain effective plans for responding to natural disasters.”
All three counties were found wanting, but the audit paid particular attention to California emergency services because of the office’s role in disseminating information downstream to counties and cities.
On that front, the state is not doing enough to protect its most vulnerable, the audit found.
“Although Cal OES has issued some guidance and tools for assisting local jurisdictions in developing emergency plans to meet access and functional needs, it has not done enough to fulfill its mission with respect to protecting these vulnerable populations,” the audit stated. “Specifically, Cal OES has not taken key steps to provide support to local jurisdictions.”
In general terms, support from the state to local jurisdictions takes the form of guidance before a disaster and then on-theground resources, if needed, during one. If there’s enough planning before a disaster occurs, the logic goes, there will be less stress on resources when it eventually unfolds.
But history has shown that California’s counties are not up to the task of preparing for disasters by themselves and that a standardized approach is needed. When plans fail, the most vulnerable citizens bear the brunt.
In last year’s Camp fire in and around Paradise, the overwhelming majority of the 86 people killed were senior citizens. The audit noted that people with certain access and functional needs are two to four times more likely to die as a result of a natural disaster, according to the United Nations.
So far, the audit suggests, vulnerable communities — such as non-English speakers or individuals with physical
limitations — are being treated as an afterthought.
“I don’t think it’s any sort of nefarious plan, I think it is more implicit bias and not including vulnerable communities in the process,” said Belen Lopez-Grady, housing protection and policy analyst for the North Bay Organizing Project in Sonoma County, a grassroots group with the mission of empowering marginalized communities. Disasters, she said, are exacerbating the hardship of people who “already were bearing the brunt of inequality.”
The audit pointed out that since 2013, Cal OES has been expected to update its State Emergency Plan to detail how local governments and nongovernment agencies should mobilize and evacuate people with disabilities or other access and functional needs. Those steps, or “best practices,” according to experts, should include advising counties on identifying and locating their vulnerable citizens before a disaster occurs, so precious minutes aren’t spent doing that during the emergency.
Instead, the audit said, Cal OES merely advised counties on how to mobilize their vulnerable residents without explicit guidance on locating and counting those residents beforehand. The guidance was also posted on the Cal OES website, but the state never notified anyone it was there.
The audit also faulted Cal OES for not doing more to help cities develop disaster registries of vulnerable residents, a recommendation that dates back 30 years. California’s three biggest utilities work off similar lists when shutting off power in order to ensure that those who need power keep it.
The audit’s findings weren’t a surprise to representatives from these vulnerable communities or one of the agency’s former employees.