‘Life or death’ for disabled people caught in Auckland floods, improvements needed

Abbie Twiss felt “helpless and defeated” as the Auckland floodwaters gushed into her Mt Eden backyard last week.

“I was watching the water rise rapidly, inching up to the deck, and suddenly swarms of bark started to come down,” she said.

Twiss, who is Deaf, said her last resort for help or information was to text 111. She is registered as Deaf and told the phone operator she was Deaf and had a disability.

The dispatcher sent police, despite her request for emergency civil defence support, and sandbags to prevent the flooding.

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But when the police arrived there was no New Zealand Sign Language interpreter, so her partner helped interpret and Twiss tried to communicate with pen on paper. It wasn’t enough, Twiss said, and she couldn’t share her concerns.

“They came in with wet boots, walked around my place and off they went,” she said.

“It was only under five minutes.”

Twiss is a self-employed artist; the floodwater inside her art studio was 20cm deep and damaged some of her artwork.

In hindsight, she thinks because she told the operator she was disabled, they sent police to help evacuate her, not to support her efforts to stop the water coming in or give her the information she needed. It was the communication barriers that caused her distress.

Since then, she’s been glued to the updates on social media and watching the news on TV.

She said while there were NZSL interpreters for the central government press conferences, the communication of emergency and civil defence information was inconsistent.

“I would like to see it improved for accessibility communication for the Deaf in civil defence emergencies,” she said.

Disabled people are more at risk if there is a lack of appropriate, accessible and timely up-to-date information in an emergency, said Dr Esther Woodbury, lead adviser on disability at the Human Rights Commission.

“If you don’t know where to go, if you don’t know a safe way to leave your house, if you don’t know where to get support from, or you can’t contact people, it is absolutely a matter of life or death,” she said.

Woodbury acknowledged natural disasters are challenging because the situation can change quickly, but said disabled people can’t be an “add-on” in emergencies.

She referred to article 11 of the United Nations on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, that New Zealand ratified in 2008, which states the Government needs to take all necessary measures to ensure the protection and safety of disabled people in risk and humanitarian emergencies.

“Obviously there were lots of challenges and delays, but I can see [Whaikaha – Ministry of Disabled People] has worked closely with the community,” she said.

While the cost of living for people in Aotearoa is an important issue at the moment, disabled people are two times as likely to be in poverty compared to non-disabled people, she said.

“It is catastrophic when you lose all of your food, when you lose your accommodation for disabled people,” Woodbury said. “Disabled people very frequently don’t have any cushion to get through times of crisis.”

During the Auckland floods, an IDEA Services disability residence in Mt Roskill, housing people with very high and complex needs, had to evacuate when the house was flooded with waters reaching a metre high.

The residents were moved to an IDEA Services day base which had bathroom facilities and a kitchen, with temporary beds and equipment brought in for one night until they moved to another home.

Joan Cowan, IDEA Services chief operating officer, said the organisation were incredibly thankful to their staff, neighbours, police and especially Civil Defence who very quickly helped evacuate the residents.

“However, we cannot rely on luck in these situations, and it highlights there is no central way for local authorities to know about where vulnerable people are so that they’re a priority in an emergency,” she said.

She said the organisation ensures its emergency kits are stocked and up to date, and with the recent Cyclone Hale warnings a few weeks prior, it was extra prepared for such a large-scale weather event.

“In events like this, we typically move more quickly than waiting to hear from local government on a state of emergency announcement, because evacuating people can take more time and the people we support are more vulnerable,” she said.

Bettina Syme, CCS Disability Action’s general manager for the northern region, said, as the weather unfolded on Friday, staff met to roll out its emergency plan and began contacting their most vulnerable clients who require essential supports.

“Our emergency response plans have been well tested because of Covid,” she said.

“A lot of the skills that we gained during Covid, a lot of the resourcing that we gained during Covid has been really useful in managing this weather event.”

She said only one person out of around 500 people that CCS Disability Action supports in the region was flooded in and needed to evacuate. However, that person was able to move in with their landlord and was safe and well-supported.

She said Whaikaha – Ministry of Disabled People had been “really visible” during the state of emergency and were holding daily meetings with providers to understand what was happening on the ground and if disabled people’s rights and needs were being recognised within the bigger management plan for the city.

She said one issue that was emerging was the need for emergency generators for people reliant on power to meet their disability needs, such as power for fridges to store medication or those who require power for oxygen to run nebulisers, BiPAPs and ventilators.

One thing she has discovered was a list, held by Te Whatu Ora, of disabled people who rely on power for medical and disability needs. Since the Auckland flooding, better communication was planned to get all disabled people who would need a generator in an emergency, on that list.

She’d heard of some “incredible communities” who banded together to source a generator for a family who needed power after posting about it on a local community Facebook group.

“It’s fantastic that the community responds in times like these,” she said.

However, she said there needed to be learnings to ensure disabled people were on the right lists to urgently replace essential supports that require power.

There could more flexibility with disability support or individualised funding to purchase items like generators, Syme said.

“How to make it easier for [disabled people] to get the support they need is very much a partnership across providers and the ministry and the people we support.”

Whaikaha’s deputy chief executive – operational design and delivery Amanda Bleckmann said the wellbeing of disabled people in Auckland and affected areas was the ministry’s “top priority”.

“Whaikaha has a team working to ensure disabled people and whānau have access to support during this time,” she said.

“We are also working closely with disabled community leaders and other agencies to provide support and co-ordination for individuals as we are made aware of them, including Auckland Council, the National Emergency Management Agency, ACC and Te Whatu Ora.”

She said the Civil Defence Centres in Auckland were wheelchair-accessible and people could bring assistance dogs.

Whaikaha does not have any additional powers or resources when a state of emergency is declared, Bleckmann said.

“Our role is to work with our communities, disability service providers, Auckland Council, the National Emergency Management Agency, and other agencies. We have processes in place to provide additional disability supports where this is needed.”

The Human Rights Commission’s Woodbury said the Government needed to think about the fallout of the flooding in terms of disabled people and their recovery.

“What would be really good to see is government policy and other government agencies stepping up, because, in times of emergencies, the fault lines really start showing for disabled people,” she said.