Disability Rights Oregon filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging that Portland and Multnomah County “fail to protect people with disabilities before, during and after disasters.” It argues that the city and county’s emergency management systems — from alerts and warnings to evacuation assistance and shelter accommodations — are out of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
For more on the lawsuit, we’re joined by Jake Cornett, the executive director and CEO of Disability Rights Oregon, and Audra Pearson, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed using AI and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. A group of people with disabilities and their advocates sued the city of Portland and Multnomah County earlier this week. They’re alleging that the two local governments are “failing to protect people with disabilities before, during, and after disasters.” And they argued that the city and the county’s emergency management systems, from alerts and warnings to evacuation assistance and shelter accommodations, are out of compliance with federal law. Audra Pearson, who has cerebral palsy, is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Jake Cornett is the executive director and CEO of Disability Rights Oregon, which helped bring the suit. They both join me now. It’s great to have both of you in the studio with me.
Jake Cornett: Thank you. Thank you for having us.
Miller: Jake, first, in your release about this new suit, you talked about the deadly heat dome of 2021. How did that disaster affect people with disabilities in particular?
Cornett: Yeah, for us, this all started with that heat dome in 2021, where we saw 115 degrees, 69 deaths that resulted from that heat dome, and a lot of those deaths were of people with disabilities. Now, we did our own investigation at Disability Rights Oregon after that emergency situation. And what we were really haunted by, a number of the stories we heard, including one of Ashlyn Maddox, who lived in an adult foster care home in Portland and died about 50 feet from her front door after being dropped off and then being captured on Ring cameras, wandering around the neighborhood disoriented, unable to find her way, those few short steps to her front door. That’s exactly the sort of preventable death that we’re looking to prevent from happening again.
Miller: So just to focus on that as an example, a terrible tragedy, and as you say, preventable. So what failed, is that a policy problem? Was that a failure on the part of Multnomah County or Portland or some other part of society?
Cornett: Yeah, well, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which has been the law of the land since 1990, cities and counties have an obligation to be including people with disabilities when they’re planning for emergency response. Now emergencies can be all sorts of things. They can be the heat dome, they could be an urban fire here in Portland or Multnomah County. Or they could be a flood, an earthquake, volcano, anything that could affect day-to-day operations of the city and county in a way that really impacts the lives of its residents.
And when we think about what’s needed, there’s really kind of the planning piece before an emergency happens, planning, training and outreach that really needs to include the disability community. And really, despite years of advocacy and a lot of requests for that, we’ve just not seen that happen. And history shows that when people with disabilities aren’t included in planning, it leads to pretty awful outcomes, including a lot of preventable deaths.
Miller: I want to hear more about the specifics you’re pushing for, and that whole time on the before, the during, and the after. But as I mentioned, Audra Pearson is with us, one of the named plaintiffs in this suit. Audra, why did you want to join this lawsuit as an individual plaintiff?
Audra Pearson: Because if I didn’t join this, I wouldn’t know what to do in an emergency. Or cause I need a hoyer lift to get out of bed and medication that I take day to day. So I need caregivers on the clock, 24/7.
Miller: 24/7 care, and I should say that you’re in a motorized wheelchair as well. In the absence of the kind of public support that you’re pushing for in this suit and that Jake was starting to outline, have you had to develop your own emergency plans with caretakers or loved ones as someone with cerebral palsy?
Pearson: Not exactly, but I’ve started to, with my cousin.
Miller: What kinds of things have you talked about with your cousin?
Pearson: If there’s actually a wildfire, they now know how to get out. Cause they are a part-time wheelchair user and a part-time walker, so they spend half of the time in the wheelchair and then half of the time walking. So they have a short distance for walking and then half the time they’re a chair user.
Miller: And is the thinking that you’d be reliant on them to help you in the case of an emergency?
Pearson: No, I would rely on my caregivers to help me.
Miller: So Jake, to go back to this timeline, you said that the first thing that you’re pushing for here is planning before a disaster. What exactly are you asking the city and the county to do?
Cornett: So I just should also say that nothing we’re asking for is a surprise to the city or county. The city’s own auditor wrote a pretty scathing report, stating in the report when it comes to meeting the needs of people with disabilities during emergencies, emergency management is unprepared across all areas that we reviewed and does not meet the U.S. Department of Justice’s guidance. That was in 2021 that the city got notified that, as well as a series of very specific recommendations. And we just haven’t seen progress in the city or county since 2021 to really be doing that planning.
Miller: No progress since that audit?
Cornett: Not that we can see. You’ll have to ask the city if they believe they’ve made some progress, but we’ve yet to be able to observe it.
Pearson: We haven’t seen any.
Cornett: That’s right, Audra.
Pearson: We haven’t seen any yet for 21 years. Well…
Cornett: Five years since the audit.
Pearson: We haven’t seen any for five years since the audit.
Cornett: So some of the solutions that we’re really looking for are redundant and accessible alerts about an emergency situation that’s coming forward. So emergency warnings reach people who are deaf, people who are blind, people who have cognitive disabilities.
Pearson: People who can’t see.
Cornett: Yeah, that’s right. People who can’t see, not just people who can hear sirens or read a text message. We’re really looking for a really clear evacuation assistance process. So, people with disabilities, people like Audra, who you heard, use a power wheelchair, require 24/7 assistance, can be able to actually get out of the way of a disaster that’s coming toward them. And that takes pre-planning and a lot of thoughtful contracting to have the right services and supports in place so that when the evacuation is needed, there’s a process ready to push go on.
Miller: It also seems like that would only work if the people who are going to be providing the help know exactly who needs help and where they are. Does that kind of database exist right now?
Cornett: So, when we see counties and cities do this well, they’re actually tapping into a lot of existing information that exists. So, for example, if you’re a person with a disability who relies on a ventilator, you’ve usually indicated that to your local energy provider, so that they know if your energy goes down, your neighborhood needs to be prioritized because ventilators are, of course, life and death for a person with a disability. Yes, they have a short backup period on batteries, but that’s only a short term measure. And so, more coordination is desperately what is needed as part of this solution.
Miller: You said that the places that are doing this well, so there are examples of cities or counties that Portland and Multnomah County can look to. They don’t have to completely invent this wheel?
Cornett: Not only that, there is a really clear guidance from the U.S. Department of Justice about how to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, as it relates to emergency response. There’s also a strong report from the National Council on Disability, which is a national advisory body that advises Congress and the federal government about what cities and counties need to be thinking of an emergency response. And then on top of that, the Federal Emergency Management Administration has issued really strong guidance on how to go about doing this planning. And that’s where we’ve just seen the city and county drop the ball. Those steps need to be taken.
Miller: Who is doing well?
Cornett: Dave, that’s a great question. I can follow up with you about that.
Miller: OK, yeah, OK. And if anybody is, let us know, and we’ll share that information with our audience. So, let’s dig deeper into the “during” part. What are you pushing for in terms of shelters or places that people can go in the middle of a disaster because of which they might need to leave their homes?
Cornett: Yeah, and I would actually even back up a little bit further. Part of that begins with the accessible transportation. I mean, for Audra to get here this morning…
Pearson: TriMet.
Cornett: Yeah, you had to take a TriMet bus in order to get here. It has a specialized lift that’s able to lift a pretty heavy power wheelchair that you use.
Pearson: And after they lift me up, they tell me to find a spot in the bus, and sometimes I go in the front, sometimes I go in the back. It depends where they want me.
Cornett: Right, and then wherever you end up landing, they need to be able to secure your chair and then move you wherever it is you’re going or in the case of an emergency, a shelter.
Pearson: Yeah, but there is none…
Cornett: And all that takes time.
Pearson: …there is none. There is none that I could see right now. There is no shelters for handicapped people.
Miller: No accessible shelters for people in wheelchairs like yours?
Pearson: No.
Cornett: It’s a known problem in Multnomah and Portland County that many of the shelter locations that are planned for either don’t have accessible entrances, so there’s no ramp into it.
Pearson: Or they don’t have elevators. If the shelter’s upstairs, they don’t have elevators for people in the wheelchairs to use the elevator.
Cornett: That’s right. And then many of them also are lacking bathroom facilities that are wheelchair accessible and refrigeration, which, why would we care about refrigeration? Well, for many people with disabilities, the medications they take have to be refrigerated. So the amount of planning that goes in just getting to a shelter in the first place, of getting your medications, having a transport plan ready, and having a way to basically preserve your own life is what this case is all about.
Miller: What did you do to try to resolve this issue without litigation?
Cornett: Yeah, Disability Rights Oregon, we always try and resolve every problem we see without litigation. We shared our findings of our investigation after the heat dome deaths with the county and city. We sent a letter to the county and city back in February to really try and resolve this issue through non-litigation.
Miller: Was that the kind of meeting where you said, “Hey, we are prepared to sue, but please make it so we don’t have to make these changes. If not, we will sue.” Was it that kind of a meeting?
Cornett: The letter absolutely was that way. And listen, we would prefer not to sue. Suing is really expensive. It consumes the few precious resources that Disability Rights Oregon does have.
Pearson: And the county and the city don’t want to be sued.
Cornett: I hope they don’t, but here we are after meeting with them in March, we were really unable to resolve any of the key issues, and here we are filing the case.
Miller: Audra, what do you most hope will come from this lawsuit?
Pearson: I’m hoping that most people in wheelchairs like me, that they will understand how important it is for people in wheelchairs to have shelters that are handicapped.
Miller: Jake, what’s the potential timeline right now for this suit going forward?
Cornett: Well, we know that there are city councilors and there are county commissioners who care deeply about people with disabilities, and our hope is that this lawsuit being filed will be the impetus for them to put the pressure on the bureaucrats within city and county government to quickly resolve this, because people with disabilities really can’t wait. We cannot continue to be an afterthought when there’s a disaster.
Miller: Jake and Audra, thanks very much.
Cornett: Thank you.
Pearson: Thank you.
Miller: Jake Cornett is the executive director and CEO of Disability Rights Oregon. Audra Pearson joined the lawsuit that DRO has filed as one of the plaintiffs. The lawsuit alleges that Portland and Multnomah County are failing to protect people with disabilities before, during, and after disasters.
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