Some Of The Victims Of The LA Fires Were Disabled. How Can We Prevent That Next Time?

Since Los Angeles’ destructive wildfires began on Jan. 7, at least 25 people have died and more than a dozen others remain unaccounted for.

Officials have said the true death toll isn’t known as the fires continue to burn in the most hard-hit neighborhoods of Altadena and Pacific Palisades. But already, two of the most devastating stories to come out of the fires involve disabled residents who were unable to escape in time.

In Altadena, Anthony Mitchell Sr., an amputee who used a wheelchair, and his son Justin, who had cerebral palsy and could not walk, died as they waited for help.

As fires tore through the community, firefighters weren’t allowing anyone in, so the pair’s family couldn’t get to them in time, Mitchell’s older son told the Los Angeles Times.

“[My dad] called everybody and said, ‘I’m OK, I’m just waiting to be evacuated,’” Anthony Mitchell Jr. said. “He probably knew nobody was coming, but he wanted to keep everybody at ease.”

In the Palisades fire, former Australian child star Rory Sykes, who was born blind and had cerebral palsy, died in the cottage he lived in on his family’s 17-acre Malibu estate. His mother, Shelley Sykes, told Australian outlet 10 News First that she had a broken arm and could not lift or move her son.

“He said, ‘Mom, leave me.’ And no mom could leave their kid,” she told the channel through tears.

Sykes said she drove to the local fire department for help but authorities told her they had no water. When she returned to her property with a fire crew, Rory’s cottage had burned to the ground.

Disability activists say both stories speak to the need to prioritize and plan for disabled people’s needs when natural disasters strike.

“We very often hear about victims like these in the aftermath of disasters and large scale emergencies, whether they are natural disasters, mass shootings, or otherwise,” said Dom Kelly, the founder and CEO at New Disabled South, a nonprofit that pushes for disability rights and disability justice in 14 states.

“This is in large part because our country, all of our states, and most of our municipalities do not have strategies or plans in place to ensure that disabled folks can evacuate or are taken care of in these situations,” he told HuffPost.

Jessica Jewett, a fine artist living outside Atlanta, wasn’t surprised to hear that disabled people were among those lost in the LA wildfires, either. (Jewett was born with arthrogryposis multiplex congenita and uses a wheelchair.)

“Some places on a local level have agreements with fire departments, such as the town where I live, but nothing official,” she told HuffPost. “Disabled people are often left to fight for their own lives.”

Jewett recalled her own experience when a fire broke out in the basement of her high school. The safety protocol said that she needed to wait in the nearest stairwell with her caregiver and that the fire department would come and get her. But when the fire occurred, the entire school evacuated and left Jewett waiting in the stairwell.

“A few hours later, students started coming back into the school,” she said. “I stopped a fireman and asked why nobody came for me. He said he didn’t know we were there. I guess no one at the school had bothered to tell the fire department that I was waiting for help.”

“If the fire had been more serious, I would have been a fatality,” she said.

Like many disabled people, Jewett feels extra vulnerable when she considers what might happen to her during a natural disaster.

At least 1 in 4 Americans are disabled, and in California, over 4 million people have a disability. State government officials were well aware that the disabled population was disproportionately at risk: In 2019, the state released a troubling audit highlighting how unprepared emergency management agencies and other first responders were to protect disabled Californians during natural disasters.

When the Camp Fire burned through Northern California’s Butte County in 2018, many of the at least 85 dead were elderly, infirm or disabled.

“The reality is, disabled people are two to four times more likely to die than non-disabled people during disasters,” said Germán Parodi, co-executive director of The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies, a national organization focused on the rights and needs of people with disabilities throughout disasters.

For the last week, Parodi has been fielding calls to the group’s disability and disaster hotline, helping disabled Angelenos find places to relocate and shelter when mandatory or voluntary evacuation orders come.

“As disasters are increasing in frequency and intensity, we need to start building a better culture of readiness, so no one is left behind,” Parodi told HuffPost.

How To Plan Ahead So Disabled People Are Part Of Evacuation Plans

Preventing losses in natural disasters like wildfires means talking about emergency planning conversations as naturally and casually as we ask each other, “How’s the weather?”

On a neighbor-to-neighbor basis, that means not shying away from conversations about disabilities and planning for worst-case scenarios, said Russell Dawson Rawlings, the community organizing manager at the California Foundation forIndependent Living Centers.

“While I can’t speak for everyone, I’m very comfortable with my own disability, and I would be more than happy to talk to my neighbors about my needs during an emergency,” he said. “The more that we know about one another, the more that we can respond to each other’s needs.”

Many disabled people already have a game plan if a natural disaster occurs, but just as many don’t ― something that’s certainly true of the general population as well.

Create a personal emergency plan with evacuation routes and key contacts, Parodi said, and have a go-bag with essential items like meds, disability supplies and important documents.

“Build a support network of neighbors, friends and loved ones, and local disability organizations can ensure help is available when needed.”

On a state and local government level, Parodi said being prepared means investing in accessible infrastructure, such as evacuation transportation, shelters and communication systems, while training emergency personnel in disability-inclusive practices.

Emergency alerts and communications also need to be accessible in multiple formats, such as visual, auditory, plain language and ASL.

Jewett thinks even something as simple as a sticker on a front door to indicate a disabled resident lives there could make a difference when disaster strikes.

“The sticker needs to be universal and national so it’s easily recognizable in every community,” she said.

“Not knowing we’re there is the biggest part of the problem,” she added. “If the fire, EMS and police departments knew where to find us in a known list specifically for emergency services, we could receive proper evacuation assistance right away.”

There were heartening examples of that last week in LA: Fast-acting staff and emergency crews evacuated at least 1,400 residents from dozens of Pasadena-area nursing homes and assisted living, according to LAist. On Tuesday night, during the worst of the winds and fires in LA, local TV news crews captured residents in wheelchairs and gurneys staging in a 7-Eleven parking lot and being hurried into ambulances.

It’s important to consider disabled people and their needs in longer-term ways, too, not just during a crisis.

“In many ways, these wildfires highlight the ongoing inequity and lack of access to community resources for people with disabilities,” Dawson Rawlings said. “A lack of access to transportation, for example, can alone create barriers to evacuation.”

Finding affordable housing is another concern that disproportionately impacts disabled people, Kelly said.

“It’s very difficult for many disabled people to find accessible housing to begin with, so when homes are destroyed, there is an added layer of burden that a person has to hold when trying to figure out how to potentially rebuild an accessible home or find a new place to live that is accessible to them,” he said.

A 2023 Census Bureau report spoke to the outsized hardships and hurdles people with disabilities face after a natural disaster. Among other troubling statistics, it found that 59% of deaf evacuees reported that they never went back home after experiencing such an event.

To brace for displacement in LA, there’s already a Google doc going around listing the GoFundMe accounts of disabled people whose homes have been lost or damaged.

As recovery efforts get started ― and whenever communities have the bandwidth to plan for future emergencies ― it’s vital to center the voice of disabled people. That starts with hiring people with disabilities whenever possible, Dawson Rawlings said.

“I think the most important thing to remember is that people with disabilities are part of every community,” he said. “The best way to create plans is to have folks who have direct lived experience in the room.”

There’s an added bonus to doing so, he said. “Disabled people are terrific at thinking of adaptation, so many of us might be great at creating solutions for the whole community in disasters.”