Special needs people in peril in emergency

When, not if, we have a regional emergency, the special needs residents of McHenry County will be at risk.

Such an emergency may be as simple as mass power outages after a winter storm. McHenry County Emergency Management Agency has a Special Needs division. It is staffed by one volunteer, with the responsibility to gather information and locate special needs people before, during and after emergencies. In the agency's monthly meeting agenda note, the Special Needs division has failed to have any reported activity in eight out of the last nine months of 2009.

The county's disaster planning committee has also not addressed any issues related to special needs. The largest risks faced by county special needs residents are in evacuation and sheltering operations. In a regional emergency, it may be possible for McHenry County special needs residents to have Katrina-like response failings. Just taking a small segment of the special needs citizens that live in our nursing homes, supported living facilities and such, an evacuation of a facility takes about 12 hours under the best of conditions, and is very manpower intensive. If our first responders are being stretched by all the other related calls in such events, are we going to tie them up in evacuation duty?

Sheltering is the next big risk, once special needs citizens are evacuated, where and how are they to be sheltered? The Greater Chicago Red Cross has very limited capabilities when it comes to sheltering special need populations.

All our county public safety agencies do a fine job daily in protecting us from hazards, but special needs populations are an area that should have increased focus, at the county and local levels of our communities.

Bill Hopkins

Huntley