When the Sirens Sound

When the sirens sound, we want to believe there is a plan. A warning goes out, people hear it. They get to safety, help arrives. The system works.

Disasters do not affect everyone equally. They follow the cracks that are already there: poverty, racism, rural isolation, lack of transportation, inaccessible housing, gaps in health care, and public systems that still treat disability access as something to add later.

In Tennessee, this is not a small issue. Around 1.8 million adults in our state live with disabilities. Disability is part of every county, every school, every church, every workplace, every neighborhood, and every emergency plan.

Tennessee has a lot to plan for.

In recent years, tornadoes have torn through Middle Tennessee. Waverly has flooded. Hurricane Helene reached East Tennessee. Winter storms have knocked out power. Severe weather keeps testing the systems meant to protect us.

• What happens to disabled people when disaster strikes?
• What has the law already required for decades?
• What does this look like in Tennessee?

What needs to change before the next siren sounds?

Marcie Roth knows this work as well as anyone. She led the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Office of Disability Integration and Coordination in the past and managed more than 400 disaster deployments. She now leads the Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies. She says, "We're actually quite good at solving complex problems. However, when physical accessibility isn't provided, and communication isn't accessible, we have a much more difficult time accessing the same services and supports everyone else gets."

The problem is not that disabled people are helpless. The problem is that too many systems still expect disabled people to survive plans that were not built for them.

Why systems fail

Emergency plans often begin with an imaginary person. That person can:

• hear the warning
• read the notice
• understand the instructions
• drive away
• climb the stairs
• wait in line
• sleep in a crowded shelter
• fill out the form
• keep track of medicine
• make fast decisions under pressure
• go without power for a while

Many people can do some, or even all, of those things. Many people cannot.

If the plan only works for people who can do all of them, then the plan is not ready for the whole community.

That is how gaps show up:

• Tornado sirens that only make sound, with no visual or text warning
• Evacuation buses without wheelchair lifts
• Shelters without accessible bathrooms, cots, quiet spaces, backup power, or room for medical equipment
• Emergency information that is not available in plain language, ASL, large print, Braille, captions, or screen-reader-friendly formats
• Recovery programs that are hard to apply for, hard to understand, or hard to reach
• Temporary housing a wheelchair user cannot enter
• Hotlines that do not work for people who communicate differently
• Disaster aid that depends on paperwork people may have lost in the disaster

Disabled people are often called "vulnerable." Sometimes that word is useful. Often, it hides the real problem. A person who uses a wheelchair is not automatically vulnerable in every situation, but a building with stairs and no ramp creates danger. A Deaf person is not automatically vulnerable in every situation, but a warning system that only uses sound creates danger. A person who needs medical equipment is not automatically vulnerable in every situation, but a shelter with no backup power creates danger.

The vulnerability is not only in the person. It is in the gap between the person and the system.

Tennessee knows disaster

Tennessee is no stranger to emergencies.

• In March 2020, tornadoes hit Middle Tennessee between midnight and 2:00 a.m. That is a dangerous time for anyone. It is especially dangerous if the warning depends on sound and you are Deaf or hard of hearing, or if you need help waking up, moving, understanding the warning, or getting to a safe place. Some neighborhoods had only minutes of warning. The storms killed 25 people and tore through North Nashville, hitting low-income and underserved communities hard. COVID arrived soon after, slowing recovery.
• In August 2021, Humphreys County received more than 20 inches of rain in a single day. Waverly flooded. Twenty people died, including seven children. Cell towers went down. The 911 center flooded. For disabled residents, the damage was not only the loss of a house. It could also mean the loss of an adapted home: the ramp, the widened doorway, the grab bars, the familiar layout, the neighbors who knew what help was needed. Accessible housing is hard to find in rural Tennessee on a normal day. After a disaster, it can be almost impossible.
• In September 2024, Hurricane Helene reached East Tennessee. In the hardest-hit areas, about one in four people had a disability.

Tennessee has to prepare for tornadoes, floods, winter storms, heat, wildfires, earthquakes, and storms that do not behave the way people expect. That makes planning harder. It also makes inclusive planning more important. If the emergency could be anything, the plan has to start with people.

What Tennessee has built so far

Tennessee is not starting from nothing, however.

There are disability-focused preparedness resources, statewide networks, independent living centers, advocacy groups, public health staff, emergency managers, and local responders working on pieces of this problem.

Some of the work is visible after a disaster: hotlines, resource pages, equipment, direct help, and public information. Some of the work happens before disaster strikes: training, planning, accessibility reviews, community relationships, and exercises meant to test whether systems will actually work when they are needed.

A plan that looks good on paper can fail quickly in real life. A shelter can be listed as open but still be unusable to some people. A warning can be sent but not received. A resource can exist but be too hard to find. A hotline can be helpful, but only if people know it is there and can use it.

Tennessee knows preparedness is not only about having a document. It is about whether the document works for real people.

The real shift

The real shift is simple, but not easy. Disabled people are not "later." They are already here. They are already in the storm's path. Already in:

• the shelter,
• the hospital,
• the apartment building,
• the rural county with no public transit,
• the nursing home,
• the family trying to decide whether to stay or go.

A whole-community plan must include disabled people from the start. Emergency systems can't be designed around an imaginary average person. There is no average person in a disaster.

There are real people, with real bodies, real needs, real families, real homes, and real lives.

Before the next siren

There will be another disaster. It may be a tornado in the middle of the night. It may be a flood, a winter storm, a heat wave, a wildfire, an earthquake, or something no one saw coming.

In the pages that follow, you will read about how Tennessee prepares for disasters, how families make their own plans, what first responders need to know, what local agencies are responsible for, and what people with disabilities can do before the next emergency.

Tennessee cannot stop every emergency; no state can. However, we can all work together to make sure Tennessee is planning for the real needs of people with disabilities. We can make sure that when the sirens sound, a response was planned with us in mind.

Where to go for help

TEMA Accessible
tn.gov/tema/prepare/tema-accessible

Tennessee Disaster Support Network
Visit tn.gov/health and search "TDSN."

Disability Rights Tennessee
disabilityrightstn.org

Tennessee Disability Pathfinder HELPline
1-800-640-4636
Bilingual help is available.

Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies
800-626-4959 24/7 Disability and Disaster Hotline