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Wildfires ravaged Los Angeles at the start of this year, and my heart sank as news emerged of the preventable deaths of several disabled people. Some of them were wheelchair users with cerebral palsy, like me. If – when - disaster struck in Victoria, would my friends and I meet the same fate? I was sad and scared, but mostly I was furious.
The system had failed disabled people. Again.
To be fair, the system had failed everyone but, as usual, disabled people were disproportionately affected: left without accessible evacuation routes or mobility aids or accessible shelters. Left behind.
We deserve so much better.
Yet as I scrolled through news reports and debriefed with my friends, I found a reason for hope: cross-movement solidarity and community care.
The disabled community of Los Angeles was as ready as they could be to fill the gaps left by underprepared emergency services.
When people needed masks and air purifiers to help them breathe through the smoke-filled air, Mask Bloc LA was there. A mutual aid project, in the first week of the LA wildfires, they distributed at least 43,000 free masks.
The project, which is led by a team of predominantly disabled volunteers, also shared information about the dangers of poor air quality, during and beyond the fires. Their work was boosted by disabled news outlet, The Sick Times, as well as by prominent disabled writer and advocate, Alice Wong.
The actions and experiences of disabled people in Los Angeles have frightening implications for those of us in so-called Australia, too.
We need emergency services staff to be trained in disability awareness, to make sure that disabled people and our access needs are considered at the outset of any emergency management procedures. We need safe and accessible public transport to maximise our evacuation options. We need communication within and about emergencies in a variety of accessible formats, including Auslan interpretation and Easy Read. We need disabled people with an understanding of the needs of our community in positions of power, or the crises and ableism we face will only increase in frequency and intensity.
Over the past 12 months, we’ve seen an escalation in human rights violations and climate disasters impacting people of all marginalized groups, not just disabled people. Mutual aid campaigns – historically a common way for members of marginalised groups to support one another – are likely to increase in direct correlation with climate disasters and cost of living pressures. And I know that disabled people and our allies will chip in whatever and however we can.
In so-called Australia, we have our own equivalents of Mask Bloc LA: the Disability Justice Network, and COVID Naarm Mask Bloc, to name a few.
I’m proud of disabled people, how we rally around one another in times of need.
Simultaneously, I wish we didn’t have to.
We band together because we have no other choice. We know that no one is coming to save us, so we do our best to save each other.