Thursday, May 07, 2009 - 08:36:08 am CDT

COLUMBUS -- It’s hard enough for individuals without special needs to sift through the mountain of information on how to respond safely and adjust to disaster’s aftermath.

For those with special needs and language barriers, the challenges of coping with disaster and its aftermath become even more critical.

A gathering of 132 public health and safety professionals, emergency management directors, direct care workers and individuals with special needs met Wednesday at New World Inn for a Special Needs Preparedness Symposium. The event was planned and held by area agencies and the East Central District Health Department.

The purpose of the day-long workshop was to educate and prepare the community’s vulnerable populations for emergencies and to ensure special needs individuals and those with language barriers are not caught unaware when a flood, ice storm or pandemic occurs.

“It’s not a matter of if, but when disaster will come,” Nebraska Sen. Arnie Stuthman said during his opening remarks. “The question is: Will we be ready to help those with special needs who need our help?”

Stuthman, served as the first president of the Platte/Colfax County Health Department, now the East Central District Health Department, when it was established 10 years ago.

“We have to create an awareness that those with special needs need to be prepared too in an emergency,” Stuthman said. “I’ve got two hands, and I can help others who need help.”

Following Stuthman’s remarks Greg Smith, 65, born with muscular dystrophy and now known as the strength coach, shared his story of surviving Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Smith, who weighs just 68 pounds as a result of his disease, makes his presentation from his wheelchair.

He told his story of living in Ocean Springs, Miss., and how year after year he and his family would prepare for hurricanes during the annual storm season.

“Every year we would prepare for the hurricanes and we would evacuate like we were supposed to and there were many false alarms,” Smith said. “As time went on we evacuated less often so that by the time Katrina was coming in we decided to evacuate when we saw it would really come that time, but I decided to leave my adaptive van and power wheelchairs behind.”

Smith’s family lost nearly all their possessions to Hurricane Katrina including his specially adapted van and his powered wheelchairs.

“My power chairs are my legs,” Smith said. “Katrina knocked me back into the stone age.”

Smith spoke about being invited to move in with friends in Ohio and discovering the home was not wheelchair accessible, which made it necessary for him to move into a nursing home for four months. While in the nursing home, Smith said much of his life returned to a semblance of normal with the setting up of his office and his return to his radio program while living there.

“It’s easy for us to be prepared for the physical losses,” Smith said. “We can make sure we have the flashlight and food. We can have our emergency kits ready, but what I wasn’t prepared for was the damaging sense of loss that I felt.

“What I learned from this is that dealing with the trauma of the loss is an important part that needs to be put into the mix of being prepared. Getting over the physical loss is a minimal part of it really. Recovering from the emotional loss is much more difficult.”

Smith said the challenge facing participants at the symposium is to find a way to help others to be prepared for both the physical and emotional loss that must be dealt with in the aftermath of a disaster.

Robyn Hurlbert, area director for Northstar Services in Wayne, said the symposium’s opening speakers had opened her eyes to important issues she had not considered before.

“This has been very helpful already,” Hurlbert said, following Smith’s presentation. “We all are careful to prepare for the obvious things the physical needs of people we serve. I came to learn about other things that we might be missing and already I’ve realized we really don’t have anything in place to help with the emotional losses that people will suffer after a disaster.

Funding for the symposium came from a grant from Serve Nebraska and other financial sponsors, including: Red Cross, Platte County Emergency Management, United Way, The Nebraska Respite Network and Nebraska Citizens Corps. Planning for event began a year ago, and two waves of community coalitions have been meeting monthly since 2006.