More help needed for people with disabilities during disasters

By Nakinskie Robinson   

 

The disabled community is pushing for much-needed improvements that would protect its members during periods of disasters.

 

Cleon Porter, Chief Project Manager at the Foundation for the Disabled, says while there have been minor improvements overall, Hurricane Beryl's passage last Wednesday highlighted the lack of infrastructural and communicative support for persons with disabilities.

 

Mr. Porter adds that the conditions in shelters have been hazardous. 

 

"I wouldn't call most of them shelters, they would be like a holding area because when you are in the shelter and you have to go outside to use a bathroom during hurricane, that's dangerous. So those that has to [be fixed]," he lamented.

 

He also proposed that interpreters be provided for the deaf, as in many cases, they are left without information but for the help of family and the community, particularly some church groups. 

 

"These are the people that come together, especially the Adventist Church; they are the only church I know of have a deaf church. Each time news come on, they have an interpreter to do over back that news and send it in their groups so they are able to know what is going on. One of my recommendations, provide some subsidies to television stations so that they can pay interpreters so that the deaf community can be aware," Mr. Porter suggested. 

 

He was a guest on TVJ's Smile Jamaica.

 

During the hurricane, Radio Jamaica News observed community emergency response team members struggling to move wheelchair users over several flights of stairs at the Old Harbour High School shelter in St. Catherine, after heavy winds took a section of the school's roof.