This story is part of Rethinking Resilience, a BPR and Grist series that explores the tools, skills and networks helping Western North Carolina prepare for future disasters.
This coverage is also made possible through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
Walter Davis can’t drive because of his multiple disabilities. He takes heart pills, anxiety pills, and has lost use of his left foot because of an old work injury. When Helene hit his apartment complex in Swannanoa two years ago, he relied on neighbors to help him, he said while waiting for a bus to the grocery store. The bus stop is in front of East Haven Apartments where he lives, next to a loud and busy road.
“For about three and a half weeks we had no power, no water,” Davis said as he opened a bottle of water and watched for his ride. “We had to go down to the creek and get five gallon buckets of water and flush our toilets with it.” The storm also took out the only grocery store within walking distance, and many of his neighbors don’t have cars.
These challenges for people with disabilities extend far beyond Swannanoa. Research on natural hazards and disability has shown that people with disabilities are four times more likely to die in disasters. Those who survive disasters report more difficulty evacuating, accessing recovery resources, and rebuilding.
Agencies like the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services coordinate with emergency services to get information out to people with disabilities and their families. During the storm, Lauren Howard with the state Office on Disability and Health hopped on regular calls with advocates, families, and officials to ensure the needs of people with disabilities were being met. But, she said, many small grassroots organizations were the ones best able to find and serve the most vulnerable.
“You really have to have people with disabilities and organizations that serve people with disabilities at the table,” she said.
Some smaller nonprofits are doing their best to find those gaps and fill them.
Dom Kelly, the founder and director of the advocacy group New Disabled South, said local governments aren’t always necessarily aware of the scale of need in an emergency.
“Disabled folks are typically not at the table when planning for emergency response,” he said.
New Disabled South sent $500,000 worth of cash payments to 150 individual Helene survivors and around 300 separate families, something Kelly said indicated the scale of need.
“It's one of the things we do is just really try to build a community and networks of care,” he said. “When things like this happen, at least there's a community here of people who can help each other.”
The difficulties faced by the residents of Swannanoa's affordable housing complexes kicked off an organization in the community, literally right down the road from East Haven Apartments, off Highway 70 – Swannanoa Communities Together. Beth Trigg founded the group after Helene.
A friend of Trigg’s who lives at the nearby Jasper Apartments, reached out to her asking for help doing welfare checks on the most medically vulnerable residents.
“At that apartment complex were about a hundred people who had not been able to evacuate and were not going to be able to evacuate,” Trigg said.
There, Trigg said, she and some friends found about one hundred people who were unable to evacuate. At Jasper, East Haven, and other complexes, they would go out in small groups to ask what people needed – insulin or oxygen, for example – and try to find ways to get people their essentials.
“We really immediately saw the different needs of people who had specific medical issues or disabilities,” Trigg said.
The effort ballooned and turned more permanent. Now, the organization has shifted to long-haul support of disaster survivors’ with disabilities and complex needs. The group works with licensed therapists to help residents work through their storm trauma; provide food aid and cash support for housing; help residents navigate FEMA applications; partner with area legal aid and social workers; and collaborate with medical groups like NC MedAssist to provide access to prescription and over-the-counter medications.
But Swannanoa Communities Together’s building is small and not built for accessibility. Its community center operates out of a renovated hair salon. However, the group purchased two lots on either side of the salon and is planning to renovate it with ADA-compliant bathrooms, wheelchair ramps, and changing stations for families. Swannanoa Communities Together is using an accessibility consultant to ensure the space is as usable as possible.
“We're seeing it as a place where we can have emergency response for our community in future emergencies or future disasters,” Trigg said, but also a place where Swannanoa Communities Together can help with regular day-to-day challenges.
It’s just one place but Trigg hopes that as they expand into more long-term recovery work, accessibility will become a more permanent feature.
