Nurse's efforts during snowstorm lead to full special-needs plan

By Thomas J. Prohaska

May 26, 2008 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- LOCKPORT -- A Niagara County Health Department nurse's determination to help an elderly man during the October Surprise snowstorm of 2006 has led to a complete plan for aiding the county's special-needs population in an emergency.

The County Legislature approved the plan last week, as James C. Volkosh, emergency management director and fire coordinator, told lawmakers the plan was hashed out in 18 months of meetings.

The county already had a comprehensive plan for disaster evacuations, drawn up with Ecology & Environment of Lancaster.

But its shortcomings, at least in regard to people with little mobility, became apparent in October 2006.

Public Health Director Daniel

J. Stapleton said supervising public health nurse Laurie Schoenfeldt visited an elderly patient in his Rapids home.

Because the power was off, the sump pump wasn't working, and the man's basement was full of water, Rapids being a historically flood-prone area.

Because of privacy laws, Stapleton couldn't discuss the man's health problems, but he said Schoenfeldt placed him in her car and even kept him in her home for a while, until he could be placed.

"We couldn't put him in an emergency room because he wasn't sick. We couldn't take him to a nursing home because he wasn't acute," Volkosh said. Eventually, the man ended up going to a Red Cross shelter in Erie County.

But the episode triggered a review of what was needed to deal with people who have access problems, need special medical appliances or have other issues that make them hard to move.

"We felt we had to address it," Stapleton said.

Volkosh said the county intends to rely on high schools, since school buildings are all in some way compliant with handicapped accessibility laws.

In case of a terrorist attack or natural disaster, "One floor of a high school could be for special needs," Volkosh said.

He said as much as 10 percent of the county's aging population could fall into the special needs category.

Volkosh said the county wants to plot as many of their addresses as possible into a global information system computer program so they can be quickly located.

"I think we have to be ready to shelter 20,000 [special needs] people," he said.

Meanwhile, the Legislature is to vote June 3 on the creation of a new Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

tprohaska@buffnews.com

Newstex ID: KRTB-0019-25539057