Coston says not only isn’t it unfair or unethical to prepare but it’s important to do — both personally and for the community:

…the reality is that the more people who are prepared before a crisis, the fewer people that will need emergency assistance later. And by being prepared, you are in a better position to offer help to a friend, a neighbor, a relative, or your community.

Prepping is ethical. In October, 2008 I wrote a blog which highlighted the Johns Hopkins Study entitled “Ethics and Severe Pandemic Influenza: Maintaining Essential Functions through a Fair and Considered Response”. It included the following snippet from the summary provided on the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics website.

. . . individuals and families who can afford it should do their best to prepare for any disaster. The paper notes, the more initiative the general public exercises in stockpiling several weeks’ worth of food, water, paper goods, batteries medicines, and other needed supplies, the less vulnerable they will be to a break in the supply chain.

It is important for leaders to communicate to the middle class and the wealthy that it is their responsibility to prepare for self-sufficiency in order to free up scarce supplies and allow first responders to direct their attention towards those too poor or vulnerable to prepare themselves.

I agree with Coston. It does make sense for those who can prepare do so not only for themselves and their families, but also because the more prepared citizens, the less burden likely on first responders in a crisis. It is a message that emergency management officials have sent out to the public, but they have largely done so in an indirect way.

Officials have somewhat softpedalled the idea that, as the Johns Hopkins report suggests, “it is important for leaders to communicate to the middle class and the wealthy that it is their responsibility to prepare for self-sufficiency in order to free up scarce supplies and allow first responders to direct their attention towards those too poor or vulnerable to prepare themselves.”

Governmental emergency preparedness messaging generally does not explicitly tell those citizens who can afford to prepare should, because officials do not expect others who are economically disadvantaged or socially/language disconnected to do so. However, the fact is that while officials hope everyone will prepare, the reality is that they pragmatically don’t expect it — and plan the triage accordingly.

Yet, they believe it is too sensitive to state that point publicly. Disaster preparedness and response is generally viewed by the public and the media as program like Social Security — everyone is treated equally — but in the minds of responders they expect to be overserving underserved communities.

I think it is time that the authorities — as the Johns Hopkins report recommends — be more candid with the public and the press about how they look at the levels of readiness in different communities. Not doing so, in my opinion, just camouflages the situation and may be getting in the way of dealing with it.

By acknowledging the difficulty of reaching some areas and populations would also show the depth of the public preparedness challenge and underscores that taking on the issue fully will take focus, attention and a comprehensive approach. For example, at a South Los Angeles preparedness fair this week, Urban League spokesperson Adrianne Sears, said the event was meant to be a wake-up call to the African-American community, who she said “were not prepared for any kind of catastrophic event, whether it be a terrorist attack, major earthquake, wild fire or even civil unrest.”

Laying out the problem would make it more likely that policymakers would offer significant solutions — including preparedness partnerships with businesses and community groups (ie. the Red Cross of Greater New York is applying for a Pepsi Refresh Good Idea grant to provide preparedness training/supplies to 2500 members of “vulnerable communities.”) It would also might lead planners, the public and the media to look at creative grass-roots solutions such as “disaster buddies” and broad-based drilling involving all stakeholders together as a way to get all parts of the community prepared.

Finding a balance between the “have’s” and “have nots” is not new to U.S. preparedness policy. During the Cold War, one of things that hurt the civil defense effort was that while installing a bomb shelter was viewed as being responsible it could also seen as selfish (is there room for your neighbors?)

Granted, it is a tricky message to communicate to the public and the press. There is a risk that those who are expected to be prepared will object to the fact that the government doesn’t expect the same others (and consider it a ‘welfare’-type tiered program). We want to push personal responsibility, but is it only for those who can afford to do it? Yet, if you can’t discuss the full scope of the problem, it’s tough to prepare for it.

In the post, Nuclear Alert Sirens Fall Short For The Deaf And Hard Of Hearing,” Greg Sunshine points out that in the event of a radiological emergency, people who live within a 10-mile radius of nuclear power plants will hear a system of sirens sound the alert. However, for their deaf and hard of hearing neighbors, the sound of the sirens alone provides no warning whatsoever. He explains:

According to Nuclear Regulatory Commission (”NRC”) regulations, each nuclear power plant must have an emergency notifications system for its surrounding 10-mile “emergency planning zone.” The purpose of the sirens is to let residents know that some type of emergency has occurred, and to tune to their television or radio for specific Emergency Alert System (”EAS”) instructions (the same EAS that interrupts late night television for a weekly test).

Although the Americans with Disabilities Act requires television EAS messages to include closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing, without an alternative to the sirens, residents who cannot hear the sirens will not know to check their television in the first place. This creates a significant notification problem for radiological emergencies when getting quick emergency information could save lives.

Although sirens provide no notice to the almost 1,000,000 Americans who are functionally deaf, the NRC inspection manual indicates that sirens are an acceptable means of notifying the populace. In fact, NRC Inspection Procedure 71114.02 – which provides the guidelines for inspecting plants’ alert and notification system – indicates that sirens are the primary means of notification. According to the manual, if a plant’s siren system is adequate, the plant is considered to have met the “notice to the populace” requirement, regardless of how many deaf or hard of hearing residents would receive no such notice.

Though Sunshine points out that there are steps deaf and hard of hearing citizens can take to overcome the notification gap:

First, deaf and hard of hearing residents should call their sheriff’s office to ensure that the computer aided dispatch system has them listed as residents with difficulty hearing. Doing so may allow the residents to receive notice from the sheriff’s office if it implements route alerting (where officers drive a specific route disseminating information via loudspeaker), and would also ensure that a telecommunications device for the deaf (known as a TDD or a TTY) is used for phone conversations.

Residents should also determine whether their county, or a neighboring county, uses some type of text alert system to notify residents via text message of possible local emergencies (most often weather-related). If the county does not have a text alert system, residents should purchase a special needs weather radio. Conveniently, both the text alert and weather radios are also tied to the EAS. Therefore, if the EAS begins to notify residents of a radiological emergency at a nearby nuclear power plant, it is likely that a text alert system would be used to notify those who have enrolled in the service. If EAS is activated, the weather radios will provide notice to residents through means viable to the deaf or hard of hearing, such as “visual and vibrating alarms and simple text readouts.”

People with difficulty hearing should also determine if their county has a reverse 911 system in place, and if so, enroll in it. Reverse 911 acts as an automated calling service that calls residents entered into its database and plays a prerecorded message with emergency instructions. If such a system calls a deaf or hard of hearing resident, that resident’s TDD would translate the message into text.

Finally, FEMA advises people who are deaf or hard of hearing to “plan ahead for someone to convey essential emergency information to you if you are unable to use the TV or radio.” While this and the aforementioned efforts may not provide the same immediate notice as the sirens, they are better than no notice at all.

Although deaf and hard of hearing residents can take steps to mitigate this notification gap, the difficult reality remains that this group of citizens faces an ongoing safety disadvantage until the system is modified.

The Ready.Gov site is now offering 8 languages in addition to English — Russian, French, Tagalog, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole and Spanish.

A screenshot of Ready.Gov’s Russian language site.

“The site is focused on individuals and families in multi-hazard disasters. It includes information on what to do before (preparedness), during (response) and after (recovery and mitigation) disasters…

The new design features a simple format with main topics divided in blocks of three for easy access. The first block includes information like disaster information, preparedness, and mitigation. The second block includes action items such as recent news, major warnings and relevant information just one click away, i.e. hurricane preparedness, National Preparedness Month and H1N1.

The third block includes general information like current disasters, types of disasters and what to do before, during and after different types of natural or man-made emergencies as well as links to other government agencies active in disasters.”

The press release for the report — “Disaster Preparedness in Urban Immigrant Communities: Lessons Learned from Recent Catastrophic Events and Their Relevance to Latino and Asian Communities in Southern California” – summarizes some of the recommendations to improve the situation:

• A lack of disaster preparedness materials in languages other than English that reflect the
demographics of the service populations.
• A shortage of bilingual staff and volunteers among emergency response crews and nonprofits
that typically do outreach during emergencies.
• That ethnic media outlets are underutilized as important tools for communication with
immigrant and limited English speaking communities.
• Concern that members of the immigrant community will not come forward for assistance for
fear that their status will come into question.

The problem of preparedness in immigrant and other diverse communities should not only be a concern of only the people in those communities. As we have seen, most notably after Hurricane Katrina, our response to disasters is only as strong as the weakest link.