One of the most 

important roles of 

local government is to 

protect their citizenry 

from harm, including 

helping people prepare 

for and respond to 

emergencies. Making 

local government 

emergency preparedness 

and response programs 

accessible to people 

with disabilities 

is a critical part of 

this responsibility. 

Making these 

programs accessible 

is also required by 

the Americans with 

Disabilities Act of 1990 

(ADA).

A man using a 

wheelchair enters a 

paratransit van 

provided so he can 

evacuate from his 

home.

A police officer uses written 

notes and hand gestures to 

tell a man who is deaf to 

evacuate. 

A family, including a 

woman with a service 

animal, arrives at a 

shelter.

U.S. Department of Justice

Civil Rights Division

Disability Rights Section

An ADA Guide for Local Governments

Making Community Emergency Preparedness and

Response Programs Accessible to People with Disabilities
Planning

Notification

If you are responsible for your community’s emergency planning or response activities, 

you should involve people with disabilities in identifying needs and evaluating effective 

emergency management practices. Issues that have the greatest impact on people with 

disabilities include:

•	notification;

•	evacuation;

•	emergency transportation;

•	sheltering;

•	access to medications, refrigeration, and back-up power;

•	access to their mobility devices or service animals while in transit or at shelters; and

• access to information.

In planning for emergency services, you should consider the needs of people who use 

mobility aids such as wheelchairs, scooters, walkers, canes or crutches, or people who 

have limited stamina. Plans also need to include people who use oxygen or respirators, 

people who are blind or who have low vision, people who are deaf or hard of hearing, 

people who have a cognitive disability, people with mental illness, and those with other 

types of disabilities.

Many traditional emergency notification methods are not accessible to or usable by 

people with disabilities. People who are deaf or hard of hearing cannot hear radio, television, sirens, or other audible alerts. Those who are blind or who have low vision may not 

be aware of visual cues, such as flashing lights. Warning methods should be developed to 

ensure that all citizens will have the information necessary to make sound decisions and 

take appropriate, responsible action. Often, using a combination of methods will be more 

effective than relying on one method alone. For instance, combining visual and audible 

alerts will reach a greater audience than either method would by itself.

Solicit and incorporate input from people with different types of disabilities 

(e.g. mobility, vision, hearing, cognitive and other disabilities) regarding all 

phases of your emergency management plan including: 

• preparation; 

• notification; 

• response; and 

• clean up.

Action Steps: Planning


Provide ways to inform people who are deaf or hard of hearing of an 

impending disaster if you use emergency warning systems such as sirens 

or other audible alerts. 

NOTIFICATION (continued)

When the electric 

power supply is 

affected, it may be 

necessary to use 

several forms of 

notification. These 

might include the 

use of telephone 

calls, auto-dialed 

TTY (teletypewriter) 

messages, text 

messaging, E-mails, 

and even direct 

door-to-door contact 

with pre-registered 

individuals. 

Also, you should 

consider using opencaptioning on local TV 

stations in addition 

to incorporating 

other innovative uses 

of technology into 

such procedures, as 

well as lower-tech 

options such as 

dispatching qualified 

sign language 

interpreters to assist 

in broadcasting 

emergency 

information provided 

to the media.

Action Steps: Notification



A police officer uses hand gestures 

and a printed note to tell a woman who is deaf 

that she needs to evacuate her home.

A woman who is deaf reads a captioned 

evacuation notice on her television.
Evacuation

Individuals with disabilities will face a variety of challenges in evacuating, depending 

on the nature of the emergency. People with a mobility disability may need assistance 

leaving a building without a working elevator. Individuals who are blind or who have 

limited vision may no longer be able to independently use traditional orientation and 

navigation methods. An individual who is deaf may be trapped somewhere unable to 

communicate with anyone because the only communication device relies on voice. 

Procedures should be in place to ensure that people with disabilities can evacuate the 

physical area in a variety of conditions and with or without assistance.

Adopt policies to ensure that your community evacuation plans enable 

people with disabilities, including those who have mobility, vision, 

hearing, or cognitive disabilities, mental illness, or other disabilities, to 

safely self-evacuate or to be evacuated by others. Some communities are 

instituting voluntary, confidential registries of persons with disabilities 

who may need individualized evacuation assistance or notification. If you 

adopt or maintain such a registry, have procedures in place to ensure its 

voluntariness, guarantee confidentiality controls, and develop a process 

to update the registry. Also consider how best to publicize its availability. 

Whether or not a registry is used, your plan should address accessible 

transportation needs for people who use wheelchairs, scooters, or other 

mobility aids as well as people who are blind or who have low vision.



A transit bus equipped with a wheelchair lift is 

used to evacuate individuals and families.

Action Steps: Evacuation of People with Disabilities
Evacuation (continued)

Identify accessible modes of transportation that may 

be available to help evacuate people with disabilities 

during an emergency. For instance, some communities have used lift-equipped school or transit buses to 

evacuate people who use wheelchairs during floods.

Both public and private transportation may be disrupted due to overcrowding, because of 

blocked streets and sidewalks, or because the system is not functioning at all. The movement of people during an evacuation is critical, but many people with disabilities cannot 

use traditional, inaccessible transportation.



A lift-equipped school bus is used to evacuate 

an individual using a wheelchair and her family.

Action Steps: Evacuation with Accessible Vehicles
Sheltering

Survey your community’s shelters for barriers to access for persons 

with disabilities. For instance, if you are considering incorporating 

a particular high school gymnasium into your sheltering plan, early 

in the process you should examine its parking, the path to the 

gymnasium, and the toilets serving the gymnasium to make sure they 

are accessible to people with disabilities. If you find barriers to access, 

work with the facility’s owner to try to get the barriers removed. If 

you are unable to do so, consider another nearby facility for your 

community sheltering needs.

When disasters occur, people are often provided safe refuge in temporary shelters. Some 

may be located in schools, office buildings, tents, or other areas. Historically, great attention has been paid to ensuring that those shelters are well stocked with basic necessities 

such as food, water, and blankets. But many of these shelters have not been accessible to 

people with disabilities. Individuals using a wheelchair or scooter have often been able 

somehow to get to the shelter, only to find no accessible entrance, accessible toilet, or 

accessible shelter area.

Until all of your emergency shelters have accessible parking, exterior 

routes, entrances, interior routes to the shelter area, and toilet rooms 

serving the shelter area; you should identify and widely publicize to the 

public, including persons with disabilities and the organizations that serve 

them, the locations of the most accessible emergency shelters.



A shelter with accessible features including parking, 

drop-off area, entrance, toilet rooms, and sleeping areas. 

Action Steps: Accessible Shelters
Shelter staff and volunteers are often trained in first aid or other areas critical to the 

delivery of emergency services, but many have little, if any, familiarity with the needs 

of people with disabilities. In some instances, people with disabilities have been turned 

away from shelters because of volunteers’ lack of confidence regarding the shelter’s 

ability to meet their needs. Generally, people with disabilities may not be segregated 

or told to go to “special” shelters designated for their use. They should ordinarily be 

allowed to attend the same shelters as their neighbors and coworkers.

Sheltering (continued)

Invite representatives of group homes and other 

people with disabilities to meet with you as 

part of your routine shelter planning. Discuss 

with them which shelters they would be more 

likely to use in the event of an emergency and 

what, if any, disability-related concerns they 

may have while sheltering. Develop site-specific 

instructions for your volunteers and staff to 

address these concerns.

Action Steps: Input on Shelter Planning and Staff Training



A individual who uses a wheelchair sits on a cot 

that is placed against a wall. The height of the 

bed and the wheelchair seat are of similar height 

making it possible for this person to transfer from 

the wheelchair to the bed. 

A shelter worker helps a person 

onto a cot using a portable lift 

provided by the shelter. 

A shelter worker helps a man 

transfer onto a cot.
Many shelters have a “no pets” policy and some mistakenly apply this policy to exclude 

service animals such as guide dogs for people who are blind, hearing dogs for people 

who are deaf, or dogs that pull wheelchairs or retrieve dropped objects. When people 

with disabilities who use service animals are told that their animals cannot enter the 

shelter, they are forced to choose between safety and abandoning a highly trained animal 

that accompanies them everywhere and allows them to function independently.

Adopt procedures to ensure that people with disabilities who use 

service animals are not separated from their service animals when 

sheltering during an emergency, even if pets are normally prohibited 

in shelters. While you cannot unnecessarily segregate persons who 

use service animals from others, you may consider the potential 

presence of persons who, for safety or health reasons, should not be 

with certain types of animals.

Action Steps: Service Animals

Individuals whose disabilities require medications, such as certain types of insulin that 

require constant refrigeration, may find that many shelters do not provide refrigerators 

or ice-packed coolers. Individuals who use life support systems and other devices rely 

on electricity to function and stay alive and, in many cases, may not have access to a 

generator or other source of electricity within a shelter.

Sheltering (continued)



A man using a wheelchair arrives at 

a shelter with his family and service 

animal.

A woman has a service animal 

lying on the floor next to her cot.
Ensure that a reasonable number of 

emergency shelters have back-up generators 

and a way to keep medications refrigerated 

(such as a refrigerator or a cooler with ice). 

These shelters should be made available on 

a priority basis to people whose disabilities 

require access to electricity and refrigeration, 

for example, for using life-sustaining medical 

devices, providing power to motorized 

wheelchairs, and preserving certain 

medications, such as insulin, that require 

refrigeration. The public should be routinely 

notified about the location of these shelters. 

In addition, if you choose to maintain a 

confidential registry of individuals needing 

transportation assistance, this registry could 

also record those who would be in need of 

particular medications. This will facilitate your 

planning priorities.

People who are deaf or hard of hearing may not have access to audible information 

routinely made available to people in the temporary shelters. Individuals who are blind 

or who have low vision will not be able to use printed notices, advisories, or other 

written information.

Adopt procedures to provide accessible 

communication for people who are deaf 

or hard of hearing and for people with 

severe speech disabilities. Train staff on the 

basic procedures for providing accessible 

communication, including exchanging notes 

or posting written announcements to go with 

spoken announcements. Train staff to read 

printed information, upon request, to persons 

who are blind or who have low vision.

Action Steps: Medications, Refrigeration, and Back-up Power

Action Steps: Communications

Sheltering (continued)



A person using a wheelchair 

picks up medication at the 

shelter. 

A shelter worker reads 

printed information to a 

woman who is blind. 
Action Steps: Planning

The needs of individuals with disabilities should be considered, too, when they leave a 

shelter or are otherwise allowed to return to their home. If a ramp has been destroyed, an 

individual with a mobility impairment will be unable to get into and out of the house. In 

case temporary housing is needed past the stay at the shelter, your emergency response 

plan could identify available physically accessible short-term housing, as well as housing 

with appropriate communication devices, such as TTY’s, to ensure individuals with communication disabilities can communicate with family, friends, and medical professionals.

Identify temporary accessible housing (such as accessible hotel rooms within 

the community or in nearby communities) that could be used if people with 

disabilities cannot immediately return home after a disaster if, for instance, 

necessary accessible features such as ramps or electrical systems have been 

damaged.

Returning home

10

A portable trailer provides temporary 

accessible housing for an individual who 

uses a wheelchair and his family. In 

addition to accessible features inside, the 

trailer also has an accessible entrance, 

accessible parking, and the trailer is 

located on an accessible route to other 

site features in the mobile home park. 
Action Steps: Contracting for Emergency Services

Make sure that contracts for emergency services require providers to 

follow appropriate steps outlined in this document. Review the terms of 

these contracts on a regular basis to ensure that they continue to meet the 

accessibility needs of people with disabilities. Provide training to contractors 

so that they understand how best to coordinate their activities with your 

overall accessibility plan for emergency services.

RETURNING HOME (continued)

Many local governments provide emergency services through contracts with other local 

governments or private relief organizations. These entities may not fully understand 

the role they need to play in meeting your obligation to provide accessible emergency 

services.

Contracting for emergency services

11

A man using a wheelchair and his service animal enters 

temporary accessible housing provided in an apartment building.