Taking Disaster Planning to the Next Level

Florida’s hospitality industry benefits from providing services to persons of all ages who are permanent or seasonal residents or tourists. Approximately 1 in 5 of your guests will be persons with disabilities (PWD’s) and this number will remain steady or increase with aging baby boomers. Disabilities can include conditions that affect mobility, hearing, seeing, speaking, understanding or others. Planning for a disaster needs to be done in advance and includes strategizing what to do before an event occurs (pre-event), during an event (event) and after the acute phase is over (post-event). A recent hotel fire in Florida highlighted the need for better planning with registration of PWD’s, notification in an emergency, evacuation support, and overall communication. Recommendations from this incident included:

Train staff to expect guests with disabilities. Have TTYs, flashers, and other equipment available for guests who deaf or hard of hearing. Train staff how to use this equipment.
Know which rooms house guests with disabilities. Have this information available for emergency responders. Make sure all staff, including supervisors, have this information.
Ask if your guests with disabilities have someone traveling with them who could assist them in the event of an emergency with both hearing an alarm or assistance with evacuation. If the person does not have support, your supervisory staff should be made aware in a confidential way that this potential need exists. Make sure the information is passed on to the night shift supervisor. Issue loaner equipment as appropriate and make sure your staff can assemble and use all devices correctly; (This language can be deleted)
Notify your local Fire Department and Emergency Medical Services station in advance if there is an anticipated group registration of PWD’s.
If an incident occurs, remind them again at the time of your 911 call of the potential number of persons who might need additional assistance so they can call for additional personnel as needed.
Identify the range of disabilities. Identify how you will check to make sure all guests have evacuated the building;
Provide information as to how guests would be notified in the event of an emergency and if they would have any special equipment needs related to notification.
Also provide information to all guests as to emergency procedures and evacuation pathways at your facility. This includes where guests should all proceed to outdoors if there is a complete evacuation.
Ensure that you have planned for potential shelter needs, for example: is the group staging area protected if it rains or is chilly? Also plan for a staff person to be in charge of that area to direct guests to the staging area and to keep them informed;
Identify guests accompanied by service animals, and train staff to allow the animal to accompany the guest in all public areas.
Purchase stair chairs and mount them in your evacuation stairwells. Ensure that signage is provided identifying the availability of the equipment. Train all staff in emergency procedures including how to assist another person using a two-person carry if needed.
Ensure that there is adequate support around the clock to support evacuation, especially if you work within a multi-story structure and your “accessible rooms” are distributed throughout the building.Create your own emergency response team and outfit this group with radios to be able to communicate in the event of an emergency. Training can be secured from your local fire-rescue or emergency management teams including incident command system training.
Coordinate your emergency plans with local emergency responders, and involve the disability community in the preparation and testing of plans.