People with disabilities in Colorado Springs were placed in danger and treated as an afterthought during the Waldo Canyon fire, according to a leading local disability advocate who is proposing a series of steps to better prepare for another disaster.

“There were a number of things that didn’t go well,” said Patricia Yeager, CEO of The Independence Center, a Springs-based nonprofit that serves people with disabilities.“A couple of things that didn’t go well included alerts for people who are deaf, evacuations for people in wheelchairs,” she said Tuesday. “You can’t ask someone to leave their wheelchair behind, and we had some problems at the Cheyenne Mountain (High School) shelter. We want to resolve those issues.”

The Red Cross operated several evacuation shelters during the fire, including one at Cheyenne Mountain High School.

Yeager has invited emergency management officials from around El Paso County to an Aug. 30 listening session with people with disabilities and their families to talk about what worked and what didn’t during the fire to improve plans.

“This is the first time this has happened,” she said about the fire, the most destructive in state history. The fire burned 346 homes, and two people died.

“It’s to be understood that we’re going to have a lot of problems,” she said. “But I want the disability community to have an opportunity to talk about what worked and what didn’t work because we’re the ones — I’m hearing impaired — so we’re the ones that know. We can provide solutions and support.”

Yeager said Bret Waters, manager of the city’s Office of Emergency Management Division, agreed to participate. But she said the county turned down the invitation.

“I’m hoping they’ll change their mind,” she said.

Waters said the city is committed to working with Yeager and people with disabilities.

“As we evaluate the community response in this area, we hope to learn how to improve,” he said.

Yeager also said she offered the city and the county as much as $30,000 to hire a disability expert for a year to help create disaster strategies and plans. She said she asked the city and the county to contribute money to the temporary position.

“There’s a myriad of details that have to be addressed, and we need one person to just look at that from the disability perspective,” she said.

On July 23, Yeager sent the City Council and county commissioners a strongly worded letter detailing “significant problems” that people with disabilities experienced during the fire.

Yeager addressed the letter to Waters, but the problems she identified involve other entities besides the city government. Yeager copied Mayor Steve Bach, the City Council, County Administrator Jeff Greene, county commissioners and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, in the letter.

“While much good work was done by this community’s first responders during the Waldo Canyon Fire, there were instances where the City fell short on their ADA (federal Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance responsibilities and people with disabilities faced unacceptable and, in some cases, illegal actions,” Yeager wrote in the letter.

Among her examples:

• “Captioning (on TV) was non-existent as the crawler at the bottom of the screen does not constitute real-time information … In addition, the E9-1-1 system failed to notify not only people with disabilities but the general community. Both are unacceptable and the lack of deaf and hard of hearing individuals’ access to notifications that were available is in violation of FCC rules.”

• “Refusing to put interpreters on the air unless they work without pay is disrespectful to the deaf community and present a very real situation where there is a possibility for loss of life.”

• “One woman being evacuated from Manitou Springs by a first responder was told she could not bring her wheelchair. She refused and found her own accessible transportation out.”

• “At one shelter, 5-6 people with significant intellectual disabilities were housed with their families who were taking care of them. Several nurses at that shelter became uncomfortable and had them removed to an assisted living facility. At this same shelter all people using wheelchairs were sent to assisted living center. This is contrary to the intent of inclusive sheltering.”

• “The family of another woman who cannot move independently and needed an accessible bed called around to various agencies who either did not have a bed or refused to help until insurance issues were resolved. They were told that there were no accessible beds at the shelter. Even the Red Cross could not help them. They moved to a relative’s small, inaccessible home where the individual spent three days upright in her wheelchair as a result.”In the letter, Yeager said The Independence Center will continue to collect stories of what happened during the fire “and share them with emergency planners so that the plans we develop together address as many issues as possible.”—Contact Daniel Chacón: 476-1623Twitter @danieljchaconFacebook Daniel Chacon