Emergency management agencies are increasingly focusing attention on disaster response strategies to better serve everyone in their communities. At Berkeley Lab, planned improvements reflect a growing recognition that effective emergency response must consider the diverse needs of community members with access and functional needs.

Ayla Quesada, the Drills, Training, and Exercise team lead for the Lab’s Security and Emergency Services Division, said the Lab is making incremental changes in communications, transportation, and access,

“We have a lot of challenging geography at the Lab,” Quesada points out. “For people with mobility issues,  and that could be somebody in a wheelchair or even a temporary disability from a surgery or an injury that would make it difficult to evacuate.”

Quesada, who is actively involved in the Lab’s All Access employee resource group, advises everyone to identify the safest areas of refuge in their buildings ahead of time and to assist co-workers and others in the event of an emergency. “If they aren’t able to evacuate, call 911, because our first responders are trained to assist people with mobility needs during an evacuation.”

Chris Snyder, the Lab’s Emergency Manager, said the Lab is considering deploying multimodal alert systems that reach people through text, audio, and visual formats to ensure critical information reaches everyone as effectively as possible. These systems can help disseminate emergency information to people who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, or have low vision.

“There are also possible language barriers, or folks that are on the spectrum who under the stress of an emergency may have difficulty understanding or complying with instructions meant to help them,” Snyder said.

The Lab is continuing to evaluate evacuation routes, shelter-in-place protocols, and evacuation assembly areas to make them more accessible for the Lab’s diverse community, which includes a sizable transient population of visitors and contractors, Snyder said. “We made a lot of changes to make them more accessible and safer.”

Everyone can help by making certain that their LabAlert profiles have up-to-date information, including their personal cell phone numbers. Familiarize yourself with the locations of the evacuation assembly areas and evacuation routes nearest you. Be prepared to help a colleague or visitor who is under duress or needs assistance.

If you have access or functional needs and want to develop a personalized evacuation plan, you can reach out to the Lab’s Emergency Management at emergencymanagement@lbl.gov.

For information about emergency preparedness resources near where you live, contact your city or country emergency management office or visit the California Office of Emergency Services website or the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s accessible emergency planning website.