LOS ANGELES – The last thing Anthony Mitchell Sr. told his oldest son was that he was still waiting for an ambulance as the fast-moving Eaton Fire approached their Altadena home.
“He called everyone and said, ‘I’m fine, I’m just waiting to be evacuated,’” junior Mitchell said of his 5 a.m. phone call. “He probably knew no one would come, but he wanted to keep everyone calm.”
Mitchell’s great-grandfather and family patriarch was an amputee who used a wheelchair. Her son Justin Mitchell had cerebral palsy and needed help getting out of bed. They were unable to escape on their own and their relatives said firefighters prevented them from entering the evacuation zone.
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“He probably could have gotten up and walked away, but he won’t leave my brother,” Mitchell said. “My father would never leave any of his children. “His children were his legacy.”
So the couple huddled together waiting for a rescue that never came, becoming two of the first victims of the unprecedented firestorms still ravaging Los Angeles County.
“What hurts the most is that our state did not prepare for this at all,” Mitchell said.
Officials have known for years that Californians with disabilities are disproportionately likely to die in wildfires. The state released a scathing audit in 2019 detailing how emergency management agencies and other first responders were unprepared for the threat.
At the time, it was estimated that about 4 million Californians had a disability, including nearly a quarter of a million Angelenos under age 65.
Many say they feel even more vulnerable now.
“You feel helpless,” said actress and singer Joci Scott, 26, in a wheelchair in North Hollywood. “Evacuation procedures often forget people with disabilities. It is much more difficult for us.”
Data shows that black residents like the Mitchells are much more likely to have a disability than whites, Latinos or Asians. They were among those who cannot evacuate without help. Others, like Scott, are reluctant to flee, knowing that the tools they depend on to breathe, move, eat, bathe and go to the bathroom cannot come with them and are not available in most shelters.
“I have important medications that I can’t do without and mobility equipment that is very expensive and difficult to replace,” Scott said. “It’s really overwhelming.”
Even small, relatively inexpensive medical products, such as urinary catheters, can be difficult to find, especially in an emergency, the actress said. However, without them, “I am immediately at risk of kidney infection and sepsis.”
Theirs is a familiar anxiety, said Germán Parodi, co-executive director of The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies and the lead voice behind the Disaster and Disability Hotline, which has fielded calls from people fleeing the Los Angeles fires.
“There is the fear of not knowing where to go, what to take,” he said. “The sooner organizations like mine know the needs, the sooner I can start making sure they are sourced locally.”
Parodi said he has a direct line to state and federal disaster authorities. He and others also work closely with Los Angeles independent living centers, which can quickly mobilize an oxygen tank or wheelchair to an Angeleno in need.
“Our centers provide disaster plans and resources,” said Renee Nash, an outreach worker for Communities Actively Living Independent and Free in downtown Los Angeles. “If people need motel vouchers, if they need access to Uber or Lyft, we do it for free.”
They can also provide battery banks to those who need to keep medical devices running while they lose power, as thousands have done this week in Los Angeles.
“If you’re in an oxygen concentrator or a hoyer lift, Edison asks us to give you a backup Goal Zero Yeti battery so you can plug in your medical device,” Nash explained. “People have said they are working very well.”
But major obstacles remain, especially when it comes to evacuations.
“They closed the roads and no one can get in to help,” said Serra Rea, Disaster Access and Resources program manager at the California Foundation for Independent Living.
Many people with disabilities do not drive or have access to a vehicle. Others fear getting stuck in a traffic jam and burning alive in their cars.
“We saw a couple of days ago that many people had to leave their cars and run for their lives,” which is not an option for some people with disabilities, Rea said.
Recent failures in the emergency alert system have only increased the terror.
“I can’t just jump out of bed and run really fast; I have to find someone who is willing to carry me down the stairs,” said Tamara Mena, a wheelchair user in Northridge who was trapped in her apartment for days when an El Power outage knocked down the elevators in his apartment. “Every minute, every second counts.”
Others said they were frustrated by the lack of communication from officials.
“If people didn’t share these resources, I wouldn’t know anything about them, which I think is a little confusing,” Scott said. “This should already be widespread information.”
Municipal, state, and federal governments have offices charged with ensuring that people with disabilities are not left behind in disasters; each declined to make officials available for comment.
For Mitchell, the pain over the loss of his father and brother is tinged with fury at the way they died.
“I’m angry about what happened to my father because it shouldn’t have happened,” he said. “The institutions let him down.”
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