Have a Suggestion?

Types of Disasters and Considerations for Older Adults

The Administration on Aging understands the heavy impact that being the victim of a disaster can have on older adults. As a result, AoA developed guidelines to help local aging services providers both understand the potential for problems specific to seniors and to help providers be successful advocates to help them.

After a short definition of the type of disaster, AoA has compiled information on the amount of time you are likely to have before a type of disaster occurs, the potential for damage, the likely type of casualties, what type of immediate response an advocate for older adults might take, what type of long-term implications might be encountered, and a section on additional considerations.

courtesy NC Department of Crime Control and Public Safety

Agricultural Drought

Avalanche and Mudslide

Earthquake

Epidemic

Floods

Heat Wave

Hurricane

Nuclear

Riots and Civil Disorders

Tornado

Widespread Fire

Winter Storm

Homeland Security on Potential Terrorist Attacks

Agricultural Drought
Agricultural disasters may have many causes, such as flooding or winter storms. The consequences of these causes are discussed in their proper place. However, a drought is the one disaster which focuses on agriculture because it is agriculture. Agricultural disasters are primarily economic, and the impact on the populace is financial and emotional/psychological .

Leadtime:
Droughts have extended lead time and even significant portions of a year in warning time. Further, a drought is one of the few natural disasters which can be naturally and suddenly alleviated; two or three days of gentle rain and the drought is merely a memory.

Damage:
Widespread; extensive to universal. Crops first, then native flora; then fauna, particularly livestock.

Casualties:
Actual physical injury to persons from a drought is rare.

Immediate Response:
Need to focus as much on the emotional and psychological impact as the economic; may need to advocate relocation early in the drought, and an abandonment or temporary withdrawal from agriculture on the part of older persons. Resource information dissemination is important, as is information on assistance targeting farmers.

Long-Term Action:
Loans, relocation advocacy and assistance with the possible decision to terminate active farming operations.

Observations and Comments:
Drought generally involves a large area, frequently crossing AAA and state boundaries. There is a tendency among older farmers to remain on the farm and battle a drought. Persons of strong religious faith frequently encounter a crisis of belief or strong feelings of guilt as a result of experiencing a drought, and counseling assistance may be required in this area.

Avalanches and Mudslides
These are the result of a situation where gravity overcomes friction, and portions of the upper part of a mountain decide to join the valley below. These are among the most capricious disasters, destroying some property and totally sparing others nearby.

Leadtime:
Winter avalanches and rainy season mudslides require specific conditions, and when conditions support such slides the fact is usually publicized. This is comparable to a "watch" condition, but warnings are seldom available. Rockslides are less predictable.

Damage:
Initial damage from descending material can be total. Consequential damage may include loss or disruption of electric, water, sewer, and other services. Flooding may result upstream from a blockage in a flowing body of water, isolation and disruption of distribution of food and other necessities, and the paralysis of some communities.

Casualties:
Casualties may be severe when avalanches strike occupied places.

Immediate Response:
Rescue; victims frequently survive in buried structures for substantial periods of time. Shelter, alleviation of the effects of isolation, more severe among older persons. Establishment of services or substitutes; reassurances about the availability of food and other necessities.

Long-Term Action:
Usual procedures for disaster relief.

Observations and Comments:
Usually a narrow band of damage or destruction. Localities which experience these disasters have usually experienced them before, and older persons have often had substantial experience in dealing with these phenomena. It would not be unusual to encounter older persons demonstrating the toughness and resiliency which is frequently present as they deal with the events before them and tell tales of the "Big Slide of 47".

Earthquake
Earthquakes are severe seismic disturbances which may be localized or general. Although they usually occur in locations which are known for earthquakes, they may and do happen in every state, and a major earthquake is now expected within a century at New Madrid, Missouri, hardly a center of seismic activity.

Leadtime:
Almost none; although major quakes sometimes have "foreshocks", it is not now possible to distinguish a foreshock from a smaller earthquake.

Damage:
Damage can range from disruptive to devastating, depending on the severity of the quake and the location. In addition to collapsing structures, and the elimination of the structural integrity of apparently sound buildings, great damage is caused by secondary effects; these include fires, local flooding from ruptured water and sewer pipes, and the possible escape of damaging agents ranging from toxins to zoo animals.

Casualties:
Can range from mercifully light to decimation, depending on the time and circumstances of the quake. The 1994 Martin Luther King quake in Los Angeles had modest casualties compared to the earlier World Series earthquake in San Francisco, because it struck early in the morning on a Monday holiday.

Immediate Response:
Rescue, especially since older people often can give only feeble alarms. Emergency services of all kinds to those in the afflicted areas.

Long-Term Action:
Every possible kind of service and advocacy, including repairs, rebuilding and relocation. There will be specially heavy demands for respite services as primary care providers are called upon to deal with their own problems as well as the problems of their elder dependents.

Observations and Comments:
Of all the disasters, earthquakes strike most suddenly, deal horrendous damage, and attack the confidence of the victims. When older persons no longer feel safe inside, it is sometimes difficult for the aging network to deal with their problems. This is particularly true when helpers and caregivers share the unease indoors.

Epidemic
A widespread medical emergency, usually dealing with communicable disease. This disaster carries with it the seeds of great panic.

Leadtime:
Usually little or none prior to the recognition of the presence of an epidemic; once an epidemic is noticed and measures are taken to deal with it, the emergency becomes self-sustaining for the duration of the emergency.

Damage:
None, unless structures need to be razed because of contamination or because they are a source of a carrier of a disease, as in the case of rats with bubonic plague.

Casualties:
Depend on the virulence of the disease and how widespread it might be. However, as we are reminded during most flu seasons, older people are at greater risk in the face of medical problems and their needs in this area are often greater than the general public.

Immediate Response:
Assist in securing medical attention, seeing to it that the special needs of the older people, who are particularly vulnerable, are not lost in the general excitement. Dissemination of medical information, once again with particular attention to the needs of older persons.

Long-Term Action:
Probably very slight; after-effects of some diseases may change the service requirements or capabilities of older persons, requiring extra effort from case managers.

Observations and Comments:
A key concern is the alleviation of panic. It is also important to remember that among older couples one patient may well require services for two because of the absence or incapacity of the partner.

Floods
Floods are of two types - General widespread flooding from the rising of rivers and streams; and, Flash Floods, where strong rains and narrow drainage channels combine to overburden runoff routes, causing sudden dramatic rises, generally on a local basis.

Leadtime:
Floods of the general widespread type, like those encountered in the Midwest in 1993, are seldom sudden. Leadtimes of days and even a week sometimes occur. Floods are monitored by the Weather Bureau, which has warning standards.

Damage:
Extreme. Structures may be washed away, or their foundations may be so weakened that they are unsafe for any purpose. Damage may not show up for extended periods; for example, a furnace may be destroyed by a spring flood but the malfunctioning may not be evident until the fall when it is first turned on.

Casualties:
With adequate lead time, these are generally slight, although there is a tendency among many people to overwork. The risk of heart attacks, as well as such stress-induced afflictions as stroke, is magnified during the period leading up to the crisis.

Immediate Response:
Rescue and evacuation, if necessary enforced evacuation when further effort is dangerous and futile. It is vital that areas where older persons may be found be identified by local Aging Network organizations. In addition, flooding disrupts road networks, making travel especially difficult for those who are readily confused. Service systems will be disrupted and may be out of service for extended periods.

Long-Term Action:
The usual range of disaster relief services.

Observations and Comments:
Once again, the experience of older persons who have long lived in flood-prone areas make these people a resource as well as a dependent community. Among such people, a feeling of resignation is as likely as a feeling of panic. Service providers would do well to consider the older community as a source of information and assistance, every bit as much as a center of needs.

Heat Wave
A prolonged period of high temperature often offers a special threat to older persons. This is particularly true among older persons of limited means, for whom an increase in a utility bill is an important disincentive to taking advantage of air conditioners or fans, and for whom the purchase of a fan is a major expenditure.

Leadtime:
Usually from day to day.

Damage:
None.

Casualties:
The death rate among older Americans rises sharply during any sustained period of heat. This is especially true for those with respiratory disorders. Preventive action can reduce these heat-related deaths. Among those older persons who occupy their own homes, and those who lead active lives, there is a tendency to attempt to carry on with activities which could be hazardous when it is hot outdoors.

Immediate Response:
Establish temporary facilities where the effects of heat can be reduced. Conducting a two-part publicity effort, to make the older adults aware of the location of cooling places, and to counsel against exertion in the heat. Some communities establish fan banks where an older person can borrow or be given a fan.

Long-Term Action:
Not much long-term action can be taken. Most utility companies have special provisions for older and poorer customers, which permit the use of cooling electricity without fatal effects on a budget, and the Aging Network can coordinate information programs with the directors of the utility programs.

Observations and Comments:
Heat waves happen from day to day. No research has been found which indicates how many days of heat must pass before adverse effects become significant, nor is there a standard to determine when "a couple of hot days" becomes a heat wave, so service providers must be alert during summer because sometimes one day is enough to cause distress or injury to some. In addition, the off-season is the time for service providers to begin to line up cool environments for use in summer. Schools, churches and libraries are among the kinds of facilities which might be willing to offer respite for the heat. Remember, too, prolonged heat attacks tempers with as much vigor as bodies.

Hurricane
A hurricane is a severe tropical storm bearing high winds and heavy rain. They generally have the greatest impact in coastal areas, although their destructive force can reach well inland, to cities as far from the sea as Charlotte, North Carolina. They may carry with them a "tide surge" which brings great quantities of the ocean flooding inland, and even when they are no longer of the force of a hurricane they can do dreadful damage, causing flooding as Alberto did in 1994. Pacific hurricanes are called "typhoons.

Leadtime:
The Weather Service maintains a National Hurricane Forecasting Center in Miami which is dedicated to providing the greatest lead time available. There is generally a few hours at least, but the warnings tend to cover large areas of coastline, reflecting the fact that the path of a hurricane is quite unpredictable. In addition, the strength of a hurricane varies greatly from hour to hour. A storm which seems to be spent and drifting on out to sea may suddenly re-gather force, change direction, and batter the shore in an unexpected direction.

Damage:
Damage can be great. Wind can open a structure and then attendant rain can ravage the interior. Heavy rains and tide surges can bring flooding and the damage which attends flooding. The winds can destroy power lines, send trees crashing into houses, and rip the very skin from buildings. In low-lying areas such as some of the barrier islands, severe hurricanes can push a tide surge completely across the land.

Casualties:
Can be moderate to great. This varies with warning time, storm strength, and the severity of flooding and other secondary effects.

Immediate Response:
Evacuation of low-lying areas. Rescue. Generally similar to the response to flooding.

Long-Term Action:
Wide-ranging disaster response activities.

Observations and Comments:
A hurricane leaves a broad path of destruction from wind and water, and is capable of reaching far inland. Where the sea reaches inland, destruction can be much greater because of the effects of sea water on property.

Nuclear
This contemplates a peacetime nuclear disaster, such as Three Mile Island or Chernoble. It may involve an explosion or the escape of radioactive matter into the air.

Leadtime:
None.

Damage:
An explosion will result in total destruction in the immediate vicinity of the center of the explosion, ranging down to modest damage further away. The radius of the area of total destruction and the distance at which damage becomes modest and occasional depends on the magnitude of the explosion. Secondary damage will result from firestorms, the windstorms which spring up at the edge of the devastated area, and from fires started in damaged structures.

Casualties:
Casualties will be of three kinds: (1) those suffering injuries from burns and blast as a result of the direct forces of the explosion; (2) those suffering from the effects of radiation; and, (3) those suffering the ordinary injuries which follow any destructive episode, sustained fighting fire, negotiating wrecked and ruined structures, cuts from flying glass and debris, etc. In many cases, ordinary injuries will be complicated by radiation burns or radiation sickness. Prognosis for those so injured is limited.

Immediate Response:
Rescue. Temporary shelter. Triage.

Long-Term Action:
The range of disaster responses.

Observations and Comments:
A nuclear explosion will doubtless bring every federal disaster response entity, the Defense Department, and an entire alphabet soup of federal agencies. Aging Network elements will doubtless receive immediate (and perhaps conflicting) direction from federal entities. In addition, older persons are apparently extremely susceptible to radiation poisoning and radiation sickness, and casualties among older survivors will be much higher than the general population.

Riots and Civil Disorders
Older persons usually understand themselves to be among the weaker elements of society, protected by the social structure. When that is destroyed, they properly feel highly vulnerable.

Leadtime:
Seldom any leadtime at all; the civil disorders that marked the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King flared up on a city-by-city basis that sometimes provided a 24-hour warning period, but usually not. No warning preceded the disorders attendant on the "Rodney King Verdict" disorders in Los Angeles.

Damage:
Physical damage to structures by fire was frequent; damage by looters forcing entry, or by rioters merely doing damage is substantial. Economic damage to small businesses is frequent. The greatest damage is the crisis in confidence caused by an apparently impotent governmental system.

Casualties:
Frequent; often fatalities are "personal", the result of a specific episode between individuals or an individual and a group. Civil disorders are propelled by great rage in individuals, and violence can become random.

Immediate Response:
Identify vulnerable older persons and seek to devise protective measures for their safety, and less urgently for the safety of their property. Deal with the urgent and immediate needs only during the course of any widespread civil disorder.

Long-Term Action:
Usual disaster responses, depending on the nature of the damage suffered. A key target area is the restoration of comfort with the community and the authorities, and the restoration of a feeling of safety or a reduction in the feeling of fear in public places.

Observations and Comments:
Riots and civil disorders generally operate in an atmosphere of "We" against "Them." Racially or ethnically motivated disorders often impose great risk on older persons of the "wrong" ethnic or racial group, while only offering minimal threat to those older persons of the same racial or ethnic background as the rioters. In these cases, care must be taken to reduce the risk to caregivers as much as possible by choosing the most acceptable persons to actually enter unstable areas and then only if necessary. Remember, too, that even after the principal centers of civil disorder have been stabilized, small pockets of disruption may remain in cities.

Tornado
A violent, twisting windstorm, generating winds of up to 300 mph at the center and sometimes keeping these twisting winds confined to a disc of 100 yards or less, as if the wind were blowing at 300 mph from the south at the visitor's goal posts and 300 mph from the north at the other end of the field. Tornadoes are especially formidable because their path on the ground is so unpredictable.

Leadtime:
The National Weather Service Severe Storms Forecasting Center in Kansas City, Missouri, is dedicated to providing as much lead time as possible for tornadoes. A system of watches and warnings for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes has cut down drastically on the number of casualties, but the warnings are for general areas of up to a few hundred square miles, so the actual location of a tornado is usually not predictable.

Damage:
Destruction is nearly total in the path of a tornado, which may be up to a mile in width, although the average is about 150 yards. Debris and even entire structures may be borne for miles by the wind.

Casualties:
May be great in the storm track, although the danger of injury decreases dramatically when people take proper shelter at the warning of a tornado.

Immediate Response:
Rescue. Emergency shelter and meals. Because services are often disrupted, particularly electrical service, assistance must be provided in this area.

Long-Term Action:
Typical disaster response activities.

Observations and Comments:
More than most disasters, injury from a tornado can be reduced by taking shelter promptly. Therefore, the importance of these measures must be stressed beforehand and reinforced when warnings are issued. Although tornadoes have been reported in every state, certain areas of the country are particularly prone to these storms, especially states in "Tornado Alley,": Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Missouri, and Illinois. Tornadoes are also frequent and damaging in the states bordering the Ohio River. Residents of these areas, including older persons, often have a supply of tornado anecdotes and a full stock of tornado lore.

Widespread Fire
Forest fires, prairie and brush fires, and other widespread conflagrations. These may be the result of other disasters such as earthquakes or may be caused in the usual way.

Leadtime:
Fires rarely threaten occupied areas suddenly; there should be hours or days of notice.

Damage:
Varies. Frequently severe or total destruction, especially to closely located buildings. Catastrophic to victims, who rarely save anything.

Casualties:
Burns and wounds suffered fighting fires and seeking to prevent the destruction of property are common; although severe, life-threatening injury is less frequently encountered. Fatalities sometimes occur.

Immediate Response:
Where possible, encourage limited efforts to avoid total loss, but such measures must be of limited duration. Evacuation is the wisest response.

Long-Term Action:
Assistance with rebuilding or repairs; temporary shelter and meals, perhaps relocation in certain instances. General disaster assistance.

Observations and Comments:
Residents only rarely can take effective ad hoc actions to preserve their residences. Widespread fire can sometimes induce great panic in individuals, who will take irrational steps to preserve their property. On occasion, evacuation may require forcible assistance. In many instances, high proportions of the casualties in widespread fires result from the efforts of homeowners to preserve their dwellings, only to realize too late that their own safety was in peril.

Winter Storm
Winter storms include blizzards, heavy snowfall without wind, extended periods of cold weather, and ice storms. Blizzards are storms which combine snowfall with high winds, and in coastal areas may result in dangerously high tides and local flooding. They also lead to diminished visibility and disorientation. Any winter storm includes the hazard of reduced visibility and road peril, which frequently cause people to stop their cars or become stuck; lives are often threatened by conditions along the road.

Leadtime:
Usually several hours or more, occasionally less.

Damage:
Damage to structures will usually be the result of the heavy winds associated with blizzards, less frequently from the weight of snow. Ice storms cause damage to power lines and other suspended cables and to trees, while severe cold may cause freezing and ruptured pipes.

Casualties:
Could be severe. In addition to the cold, and injuries sustained from structural collapse, there is a need to guard against the effects of isolation. Starvation might result from the disruption of food supplies, and fuel supplies could be interrupted.

Immediate Response:
Rescue. Monitoring the condition of older persons, either while they remain in their usual dwelling, or when they have been removed to a central location. Isolation brings problems to the older person with special needs, over and above the community-wide need for emergency food, power, and services. Hypothermia begins sooner in older people and has more severe consequences.

Long-Term Action:
The usual range of disaster relief services.

Observations and Comments:
The onset of a feeling of isolation may occur when older persons see the unshoveled walkway leading to their house. Walk shoveling is an important assist to many older persons. In addition, these weather conditions result in more falls among every segment of the population, but older bones tend to be more brittle.

* Information in this section is courtesy of the U.S. Administration on Aging