DOL emergency guidelines protect federal workers with disabilities.(Department of Labor)

The Department of Labor has just released its "template of emergency preparedness guidelines" for federal agencies to integrate the needs of workers with disabilities into emergency planning. Some of the guidelines are already in place at many federal agencies, and others can be quickly adopted at minimal cost, according to Assistant Secretary of Labor Roy Grizzard, who heads the department's Office of Disability Employment Policy.

"Some things can be done almost immediately because they don't require equipment or a large expenditure of money," Grizzard told RDL. "Some may take a little more time, but not an inordinate amount of time, to put these suggested guidelines into place." For example, the Labor Department has already been doing evacuation drills and shelter-in-place drills for the last three years, has emergency kits prepared in every section of the building, and has "people slides" for egress if the elevators cannot be used, he said.

Much of the recommended advance planning is just common sense, Grizzard said. Planning includes creating buddy systems, having a place to rendezvous, and setting up a system for informing emergency responders if everyone is out of a certain sector of the building.

The guidelines were developed by the Workplace Subcommittee, which ODEP chairs, of the federal Interagency Coordinating Council on Emergency Preparedness and Individuals with Disabilities. The guidance is a "how-to book on making the workplace prepared and safe for emergencies for people with disabilities," Grizzard told RDL. He added that making the workplace safer for a person with a disability also makes it extremely safe for everybody else.

"The primary focus initially is on the federal and local and state governments, but we hope that in the future there will be a plan that can be operationalized by private business, so that all people with disabilities in the workforce are considered when it comes to ...