Focusing on the Issue of Aging, and Growing Into the Job - New York Times: "Q. Your report mentions that the elderly are left out of most emergency planning. Why is this important?
A. Because most of the people who died in New Orleans were older. Following 9/11, my wife, Myrna Lewis, who was a social worker and who died in 2005, went to seek out the elderly in the neighborhoods around the World Trade Center. She found lots of older people who were really neglected in the emergency. They went without medications. Home health aides couldn’t get through to them. Some were living in feces.
Both events should get us thinking about what happens to older people in assisted care and nursing home facilities during emergencies — tornados, blackouts, hurricanes. Society is not sensitive to the fact that old people are not as able to survive under perilous circumstances. Homeland Security needs to be considering this."
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