Gary Karp's Good Reading: Disability Awareness Information... and More.
March 16, 2011
In This Issue
Emergency Prep and Disability
My Upcoming Travels
More Free Webinars!
Quick Links
Still Blogging
Read My Latest Thoughts...

...on the issues raised by eLEGS, the exoskeleton technology from

Berkeley Bionics Logo

Books by Gary Karp
AAPD Logo
Life On Wheels
The A to Z Guide to Living Fully with Mobility Issues

AAPD Logo
From There To Here
Stories of Adjustment to Spinal Cord Injury

AAPD Logo
Disability & the
Art of Kissing

Questions and Answers on the True Nature of Intimacy
Join the Good Reading List
Join Our Mailing List
Greetings!

Ah, spring is about to, well, spring.

I'll be putting a selection of coleus into my pots soon.

In the meantime, here's some more Good Reading.

Gary 
Emergency Preparedness and Disability  
The Japanese Earthquake Reminds Us
 

We learned some truly horrible lessons from Hurricane Katrina. But a major piece of that story has never gotten the coverage it deserved - we were terribly unprepared to meet the needs of people with disabilities. 

Emergency shelters were inaccessible. People were forced to leave behind service animals. How to lift someone in a power wheelchair into a helicopter from a flooded house? How do you ensure people have medications, personal assistance?  

The list goes on and on. Many, many crucial, unmet needs.
In New Orleans, people died. 

FEMA Logo

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is dealing with this. They have established the Office of Disability Integration and Coordination, headed by Marcie Roth.

Marcie has been a colleague and friend of mine since my time on the board and as newspaper editor for the National Spinal Cord Injury Association. She was the executive director at the time, and when Katrina hit she provided truly incredible leadership, doing all she could to put her fingers in the dike as it became so clear that people with disabilities were terribly left without proper services. Now she's at FEMA, making it happen on a national policy level. Way to go, Marcie!!

A recent White House blog put it this way:

...for years the needs of people with disabilities were more of an afterthought during disasters. Not enough was done to make sure that shelters planned for the access and functional needs of individuals. Residents who were blind or deaf, and those with intellectual disabilities didn't have access to critical information about evacuation routes or other warnings. And in some cases, accessible transportation for people with disabilities just wasn't factored into planning at all.

 

These issues need to be addressed on a local level. I live in Northern California, so face the prospect of earthquakes. I grew up in Michigan with blizzards and the risk of tornadoes. Heat waves. Hurricanes. Volcanic eruptions. Wherever you are, there is some way that the earth can make a mess of things.

 

What are your local authorities doing to address emergency preparedness for people with disabilities? 


Upcoming Travels  


I'm Going to The Yukon! 

From May 26 - 28 I will at last visit a place that has always been such a source of curiosity for me - the Yukon Territory.

 

It's already clear that it's not a bunch of people in parkas and igloos up there. They have a very dedicated community of people devoted to disability and employment. I'll have the honor of giving a keynote address at the Six Steps to Success conference at the Yukon Convention Center, and get a taste of the stunning springtime vistas (and 23 hour daylight) of this very unique place on earth. 

 

Six Steps to Success Logo 

A couple of other upcoming gigs:

 

May 20: Arkansas Spinal Cord Commission, Little Rock 

June 5: State of Science in Spinal Cord Injury, D.C.  

 

Care to follow my schedule? Bookmark this link

More Webinars
And a First for Me and the Reeve Foundation 

 

On Thursday, March 17, I'll deliver the first of a quarterly series of webinars sponsored by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center. This first session will be on disability & intimacy. Sex On Wheels, starting at 4:00 pacific time.

 

It's free, and you can register here.

Reeve PRC Logo  

 

I continue to travel around the U.S. speaking at university physical and occupational therapy programs, and at spinal cord rehabilitation centers, thanks to CDRF funding. 

 

Stay Tuned 

 

I'll be scheduling new dates soon for my two free webinars: The New Paradigm of Modern Disability and
The Three Principles of Disability Etiquette.  

 

If your organization would like to have a dedicated delivery of either or both of these, contact me by email or call me at 415.491.4280 to discuss setting a date - just for you.

 Studio photos copyright, charliesamuels.com.