My local council, who think they’re totes mah goats the best on disability because we have two wheelchair beach mats, has a habit of abandoning disabled people in storm season.
When it’s time to go get sandbags for storms or cyclones, there’s no assistance. There’s no help if you’re unable to drive, use a shovel, fill a sandbag, lift a sandbag into a car, place sandbags around your house.
(People often get angry at me for bringing this issue up and tell me there’s TOTALLY HELP… but the SES are not staffed to help every elderly and disabled person. And there’s a large social issue with people refusing to help young disabled people or people with “invisible” disabilities.)
The council’s suggestion if you can’t get to and make your own sandbags:
Buy them.
Because disability NEVER intersects with low income/poverty (sarcasm font there). And there’s NEVER a run on these items during a disaster.
But it’s ok, those two wheelchair beach mats will save us somehow.
Don’t even get me started on the evacuation centres – who say “don’t bring much” only …. I can’t do that. I need a lot of custom food and medication and cooling devices. I had six bags packed earlier in 2025 for the cyclone in case we had to evacuate. And again, I don’t “look” disabled so if I’d had to evacuate, it would have been a problem for me when we showed up at an evac centre.
And that’s ignoring the inaccessibility of evacuation centres – the noise, lights, infection risk etc would have a severe effect on me.
To be fair to my council, I don’t think anywhere is good on this. People with a disability are discarded in disasters, and no one really has a plan to make sure that doesn’t happen.
If you like my posts, consider supporting me.
