FEMA helps people with disabilities get help recovering from extra tornado losses

If you are a victim of the recent tornado disaster and you have a disability, FEMA has made provisions to get you the assistance you need.  

The sole purpose of FEMA’s Office of Disability Integration and Coordination is to “identify the people who are forced to live with the consequences of a disaster a lot longer,” Director Sherman Gilliums Jr. said.  

Gilliums explained that the ODICD was created by the Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act because it was discovered that people with certain disabilities had difficulty accessing resources they needed to put their lives back together.  

“If you communicated through American Sign Language, you may have had trouble accessing a damage assessor,” Gilliums said. “So, we had to find ways to make sure modes of communications were diverse enough to address the litany of ways people need to communicate, whether it was a screen reader or a sign language interpreter.”  

The law also increased the amount of FEMA grants awarded to people with certain disabilities. “If I had lost everything, and I am able bodied -- I lost my refrigerator, food, things like that -- that’s one level of loss,” Gilliums said. “But if I lost those same things, and I lost my wheelchair, and my ramps were damaged, all those other things that are specifically intended to address a functional need, I’m at a greater disadvantage because I’m using all that money to replace these things and not able to use it to replace all the other things I need.”  

The answer was to increase the amount of money available to those who can demonstrate losses associated with accessibility equipment. “Some losses are about the extra things some people need just to keep up,” Gilliums said. 

It’s not just people who are deaf or blind or in a wheelchair that can qualify for help from the ODICD. “They can be someone who is injured by the disaster.Just about anybody that is at a disadvantage because of a functional loss in some way,” he said. Elderly people, women in late-term pregnancy and other similar situations can qualify for the extra assistance.  

“While we do start with disabilities, we want people to think more broadly,” Gilliums said. “We help just about anybody who needs an assistant aid service or some sort of support that’s not easily attainable in a shelter or disaster recovery center.”  

If you think you may qualify for special resources,it’s not difficult to apply. There are questions on the application about what disabilities may be an issue and what services may be needed.  

People can access assistance through the FEMA website. You can also download the FEMA app on your mobile device. The toll-free number is 1-800-621-3362. This is a help line on which you can apply for FEMA assistancebetween 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. Central Time.  

If you would like to apply in person, FEMA has Disaster Recovery Centers at 405 Medical Center Parkway near Hilltop Road and at 1428 Broad Street at the Edmundite’s Bullock Center where you can talk with a FEMA representative.FEMA workers are also canvasing neighborhoods and knocking on doors to be sure everyone gets an opportunity to apply for help.