Leading the Way Programs, Ideas and Communities to Consider Presented by Brian Lake and Neil McDevitt 2011 enABLED in Emergencies Conference March 3, 2011

Best Practices vs. Good Ideas  What is a Best Practice?  Who defines what a best practice looks like?  Disasters are local, best practices are as well  The challenges, resources and needs in Fort Myers, Florida are very different than in Waterloo, Iowa  Let’s talk about some Good Ideas  You decide if something might work in your community

Mississippi Interfaith Disaster Recovery Task Force  Located in Biloxi, MS  Founded in 2006 following Hurricane Katrina  Original mission was to provide spiritual and emotional care to citizens of Gulf Coast following Katrina  Has transitioned from an organization that views mitigation as part of the recovery process to mitigation as part of the preparedness process

Mississippi Interfaith Disaster Recovery Task Force  Responsible for bringing together a diverse group of faith-based organizations in the MS Gulf Coast  Is the point organization between FB groups and local emergency managers and first responders  Sits in EOC during disasters  Disaster Coordinators in every congregation  Dr. Alice Graham, Executive Director  

Blackhawk County, Iowa – 911 Texting  First 911 call center in the country to allow texting  Realized that many Deaf consumers no longer used or had TTY which was the only way to communicate with 911 center  Perfect Storm of Advancements in Accessibility  New IP-based 911 system  Dedicated champions of providing accessibility for all  Partnerships with technology providers, cell carries and public sector

Blackhawk County, Iowa – 911 Texting  Huge implications for the Deaf/Hard of Hearing community as well as victims of domestic violence  Sarasota, Florida is evaluating the capability as they have moved to IP-based system as well  Judy Flores, Blackhawk County PSAP Director   Tom Jennings, Chair, Blackhawk County 911 Commission 

Metro Boston Transit Authority - MBTA  Found significant amount of human resources needed to evacuate passengers with disabilities  Evaluated plan and equipment and designed a system that enables all passengers to be evacuated  Purchased 512 Evacuation Chairs, 12 Mechanical Evacuation Carts w/ trailers that were specifically designed for MBTA environment – Trained w/ PWD

Metro Boston Transit Authority - MBTA  Gary Talbot, Assistant General Manager, MBTA 

Accessible Education: A Mindset and a Goal  Text equivalents for images- for people who are blind or who have low vision  Captions for audio (video, etc.)- for people who are deaf and hard of hearing  Keyboard vs. mouse functionality- for people with motor skill needs and vision needs Just like it is important to include members of the functional needs community in the emergency planning process; it is essential to make sure that education and training for the emergency planning process is accessible to include people with functional needs.

Example of Meeting the Needs  Captions can also be used for second languages (subtitles in Spanish)  Second video could be a images, slide show (PPT) or animation (Flash) User driven video interface (current prototype in development)

DeafLink  The state of Texas uses DeafLink to provide emergency alerts for Deaf/HH, Spanish speaking consumers  Individuals to receive emergency information from the city, county or state through , pagers (with text capability), cell phones with text or video capability, and PDAs (with capability)  ASL, English Voice & Text, Spanish Voice & Text  Kay Chiodo, President, DeafLink 