Climate Change, Emergency Preparedness, and Disability

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COURTNEY WILLIAMS, HOST: From KVMR and in partnership with FREED, this is Disability Rap.

RUSSELL DAWSON RAWLINGS: If we, disabled people, the community, is not at the table when larger planning is taking place, then we will continue to see very poor outcomes.

WILLIAMS: Today, a conversation on the intersection of climate change and emergency preparedness.

APRIL DAWSON RAWLINGS: I really think what's beautiful about the disability community and how it relates to disaster preparedness conversation is that the disability community, it forces you to see the world interdependently.

WILLIAMS: That's all coming up on Disability Rap. Stay tuned.

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WILLIAMS: Welcome to Disability Rap. I'm Courtney Williams. It's peak fire season, and today we're talking emergency preparation, but it's also peak vacation season, and our regular hosts are out of the office. Guest hosting today is Brian Snyder, FREED's emergency preparedness specialist, with a roundtable discussion on the realities of climate change and how they impact the disability community. Brian has been with FREED since 2018 and has had multiple roles with extensive experience in emergency preparedness and response during snowstorms, wildfires, and public safety power shutoff events.

Brian also brings a wealth of media experience to the show. As a graduate of UCLA's School of Theater, Film, and Television, he's worked in the entertainment industry and produced two episodes of the American Unity Project focused on peace literacy and his own podcast. Brian has Usher syndrome, a rare genetic condition resulting in blindness and moderate hearing loss.

Our guests today are April Dawson Rawlings and Russell Dawson Rawlings, proud parents to their dog, Sammy, and a married couple living in Sacramento. Both longtime disability advocates, April is currently studying at McGeorge School of Law, and she serves as the executive director of the California Commission on Disability Access. This role involves collaborating with stakeholders in business, disability advocacy, and local and state government to increase business accessibility and reduce litigation. April is passionate about working with communities to find common ground on complex issues. She was born with spina bifida and is a wheelchair user, road trip enthusiast, and a kayaker.

Russell serves as the California Foundation of Independent Living Centers communication and strategic partnerships manager. He brings a wealth of experience to the role, both as a wheels-on-the-ground community organizer with disability organizing group for initiating Total Equality and Occupy Sacramento, as well as leadership positions with disability-related advisory groups and the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness. Russell believes disability community leaders must be at the forefront of a progressive society because barriers to access are also barriers to progress. Passionate about accessible transformational justice for all people, Russell also knows the transformational power of humor and performs stand-up and improv comedy in his spare time. Brian spoke with April and Russell last month.

BRIAN SNYDER, HOST: Here we are on Disability Rap. I'm here with April Dawson Rawlings and Russell Dawson Rawlings. Thank you both for being here. It's really an honor and a pleasure to have you.

APRIL DAWSON RAWLINGS: Thank you. It's great to be here.

RUSSELL DAWSON RAWLINGS: Thanks, Brian.

SNYDER: Yes. This is actually interesting because this is a conversation that started 16 years ago. I was on Disability Rap with Ana Acton and Alec Guinness. At the time, he was working with the World Institute on Disability. Is that the correct place? We were talking about climate change because I had just been living in the central Sierra Nevada, and millions of trees were dying due to bark beetle and disease. It was pretty shocking. A scientist that I had heard had said that that area was ground zero for watching climate change happen in real time. It was scary. It was also interesting because it was paralleling the loss of my eyesight. I was losing my eyesight as I was watching the world disappear in its own way.

I wanted to talk with you both about how you're feeling because here we are. The atomic clock set by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is at 85 seconds to midnight. That's the closest it's ever been. It's not just because of the nuclear war threat, but it's really about also all these aggregate issues such as climate change, politics, and so on. How are you feeling as people with disabilities in the middle of this climate crisis?

RUSSELL DAWSON RAWLINGS: Wow. This is Russell. First of all, I just want to say right off the bat that I love talking with you, Brian. Every single time I'm in a space with you, it feels like we're having these really amazing, good conversations. Just the way you've given the framework of how you have started your journey here, I think that it's always important for us to contextualize things in our own lived experience, and that was a really brilliant way of doing that.

I'll be completely honest with a lot of folks and say climate is not something that I've thought enough about. I feel like living life as a disabled person, especially someone who's going to be turning 50 next year, at least I feel like my life has eclipsed multiple parts of things. I definitely acutely as a child, definitely-- I think the first time that I was aware that we were on a fragile planet was actually when I was a child. You tipped on this. I think anyone of roughly our age comes to term with that idea that when you're doing disaster preparedness drills and growing up in Texas, it was a combination of hurricane-- or not hurricane, because I was in West Texas. For my childhood, it was about preparing for tornadoes. That was just a big part of my childhood.

Also, there was this other element growing up in West Texas where, because I was in a space near an air force base, there were air raid sirens regularly and these mass drills for any other type of-- honestly, it was nuclear attack that was potentially imminent. I feel like there was this shroud of, like, even though I was a child, all of the '80s and even into the early '90s was shrouded with this idea that a nuclear attack was imminent any time or possible. I think that as a child and even as a young adolescent, I just, like so many, feel invincible. You just hear these things, and you're like, "Oh, that's wild sounding, but I don't see any evidence of this actually being a problem."

Occasionally, at least for tornadoes, you'd see a video of a vehicle wrapped around, spiraled up around a tree. It was like, "Wow, that's really shocking." Again, I've maybe seen a funnel cloud off in the distance, and that's as close in proximity as I've ever actually gotten to something of that nature. I don't know, for me, honestly, I feel like all of my life's been that theme. I've lived in West Texas, South Texas, and the Houston area, again, famous for potential hurricane threat. Then now here in California, and honestly, I've been entirely blessed that the closest I've ever gotten to any kind of tangible climate disaster, where I can feel and see it, are the days where-- and it's been a while, but there have been some periods of time where wildfire impact here in the Sacramento area looks like our air quality plummeting to disastrous levels in the sky, being impacted from pollution from wildfire.

I'll be honest, I don't think about it enough probably. However, obviously, my position at work here has given me a whole new way of thinking about what it means to be on a planet that has this ever-growing, increased, and escalating risk. I do feel like in California, because we're a heavily, heavily, heavily populated state, we also carry a lot of not only the risk, but also the-- It's our fault [chuckles] to a degree, too, because of the pressures that we're putting on that environment. Anyway, I hope that I got somewhere with responding to you there. If you're asking me, like, how do you feel about this? That's how I would initially respond.

SNYDER: Now, you are both in a high flood area in Sacramento. That has been slated for definite ground zero for-- because I was just looking at some of the recent stuff that's happening. Antarctica is having glacial calving, which means the glaciers are breaking off and causing sea level rise and melting. The earth, its temperature is rising. I remember hearing a conversation between the comedian Marc Maron and Obama, and talking about that we're going to get past that, I think it was 2.5 degrees Celsius, where there's going to be a lot of catastrophic things that are going to happen, and Sacramento is going to be a part of that. Maybe 50 years down the road, but that's all wrapped up in this. It is scary, and I do want to get to April. April, how are you feeling about the situation?

APRIL DAWSON RAWLINGS: I think that as a person with a disability, I do think about a lot of my colleagues who are affected by extreme heat or extreme cold. You mentioned communities with sea level rise. In my work, I do communicate a lot with business owners who are in high fire areas, and they sometimes contact us to ask us how they can be accessible to people with disabilities.

We're also seeing businesses who have had to adapt their operations, and so we talk to them a lot about when they're adapting their operations to emergencies that may or may not be caused by climate. Thinking about if you turn your business from a clothing store to a clothing swap during a major fire event or something like that, how you can make sure that you're thinking about people with disabilities when you're doing that and making sure that they can access what you're trying to offer?

There's those practical aspects, I think. I think also one of the things that I think about, as a law student and just as a leader, is that it's unfortunate that in today's world it's rare to change an opinion when you're presented with new information. I think that's one of the things that education and being in a democracy is supposed to offer you. We've known for a long time the data about climate change. I think if some of the deadlines have already passed, people have just, because it's such a huge topic, maybe people would rather bury their head in the sand than want to address it. If you keep doing that, obviously, you know that we're not going to get anywhere. It's really important that we act as individuals and collectively as well to make sure that--

It's always the people who have the least means economically and socially that get left behind during disasters. We're going to see more fires and, maybe, more floods and things like that as the climate change crisis continues. We really need to make sure that we're tapping into the collective wisdom of those people and centering those people in the disaster plans and in the community meetings on those plans. And making sure that those spaces where those conversations are happening are accessible, and just making sure people with disabilities are seated at places of power to be able to talk about how their lived experience is affected by these things and how policymakers can and need to respond to those emergencies that are happening.

SNYDER: Yes. I was thinking while you were talking about the deadlines have passed, and I remember, I think Bill McKibben's book, if I'm thinking of the correct name, who's the founder of 350.org. He was talking about how in 1988, that's when this was brought to Congress, that this is a serious issue, the rise of temperature. It's so strange that very little has happened a lot of ways.

Also, I remember when I first met you, it was during-- I think we worked together when you were with RIL, a Resource for Independent Living in Sacramento. We were working through the first public safety power shutoff, the first PG&E public safety power shutoff event, and trying to get people backup power solutions. People were so scared back then because people weren't thinking about it, and they didn't have plans. I remember taking calls, and people were really, really angry and scared. Underneath, anger is obviously a secondary emotion; it's fear and anxiety, primary emotions there. It's so strange to be having this conversation and just living through it at the same time. It's crazy.

APRIL DAWSON RAWLINGS: Yes, this is April. No, I remember that. I remember RIL wasn't getting as hit as hard compared to FREED in terms of the client needs at the time when we first started partnering with PG&E and CFILC on the backup battery program. I remember speaking to some of those people because there was, I think, a weekend where you all were getting hit especially hard. What the disability community does, we step up and we help each other, and so we were like the backup phone line, and so we were hooking up a lot of people with hotel vouchers.

That's a perfect example of how the disability community steps up and helps one another and why it's so important for organizations like Centers for Independent Living to be supported and continue to exist. It's one of those things. It's like somebody decided to reduce the fire danger, from the power lines, we need to shut off the power but then, the disability community was like, "Oh, but what about those of us where if you shut off our power, we can't breathe, and we'll die during those, either two hours or days that you shut off the power?"

That's another example of people with disabilities weren't in the room when that was decided. Luckily, there were people, community leaders who were savvy enough to get connected with the utility companies and say, "Hey, we have a solution to this. We don't need to have all these people dying, and so why don't you support the people on the ground who know their community better than you do and know how to get the resources to people to prevent," because when people pass away from something like not having a battery for their their oxygen tank or whatever it's so senseless, and it doesn't need to happen.

SNYDER: I remember reading in the paper a man in 2018 died because of that situation. He was on oxygen, and he didn't have backup power. He died. Yes. It's scary, and there's just a lot of people that just don't have the financial resources to be able to get those backup power solutions, and as helpful as PG&E is, there's still a lot of unmet needs.

RUSSELL DAWSON RAWLINGS: This is Russell, and as we were talking that through, as the two of you talking about the origins of-- describing the real impact that the program Disability Disaster Access and Resources, or DDAR, that we have here at CFILC, that we work in collaboration with all of our network of independent living centers and PG&E. It's interesting to me, thinking back. I've been a Californian for 25 years. This marks 25 years that I've lived in California. Clearly, that move delineates the very time that I began my true independent living journey, having moved out here knowing just one person.

I remember the early things that I experienced that were uniquely an experience that I would not have had back in Texas. One of those experiences being the 2001 rolling blackouts that were occurring throughout the state. As you know, the California's power grid was really destabilized by the dissolution of Enron, and there was also some other natural factors going on. At that time, the collective solution from the state and power providers were to temporarily interrupt power.

I thought to myself then, even, I was like, "This is during the middle of the day. It's scheduled. We know when. They predict it." At that moment where the power was out, I was like, "Wow, if I needed to operate a door or my chair wasn't fully charged--" at that time I wasn't yet using a CPAP, so I wasn't thinking that deeply. There was that moment where I was like, "Wow, what would happen if I didn't have power for an extended unknown amount of time?" That stuck with me for a very long time.

I didn't honestly think about it all the time or anything. It was whenever I was working at Resources for Independent Living, and the DDAR program was really just getting started from, honestly, that very conversation April pointed to. It was, "Hey, your solution to this problem is to shut off power, but what about those who need power to live?" That was, I think, a real game changer, because nobody had really asked that question previously, even though the problems predate, of course, public safety power shutoffs. There have always been power interruptions. It's just that nobody's thought deeply about what do we do to support people who really need power for their ability to live. Not just in the community, but a healthy life.

SNYDER: For some context, for listeners, April and Russell. Russell, I know you use a power wheelchair, and April, I know you used to use a manual chair. Are you using a power chair now?

APRIL DAWNSON RAWLINGS: I use a manual chair. I will probably be using a power chair. I would predict probably in the next decade, I might need one.

SNYDER: Because often the rotator cup goes out?

APRIL DAWNSON RAWLINGS: Yes, I think my rotator cup is struggling a little bit. When I bought my last non-adapted vehicle, I was like, "This is probably the last one before I'm going to need a van."

SNYDER: As we know, 70% of people that have perished in, let's say Katrina, were people with disabilities. The same thing was happening in the Eaton Fire in Los Angeles in 2025. People that have perished had disabilities. People with disabilities are perishing at a greater rate still. What do you think the solution is to-- Because the thing that comes to mind for me is I think of Stephen Hawking's quote, "Genius is the ability to adapt."

RUSSELL DAWSON RAWLINGS: Yes. This is Russell, and I agree. The good news is that the disability community is honestly almost always building those geniuses. It's in the nature for us to adapt. It's a necessary life feature that we must undergo. Now, I think that the answer to that question, how do we do it? It's also the old phrase, "If you're not at the table, you're on the menu." If we, disabled people, the community, is not at the table when larger planning is taking place, then we will continue to see very poor outcomes.

The Eaton Fire is a good example, I think. There was one breakdown, and I don't want to point fingers or blame because I don't know the complete details of the scope. I heard from very credible sources that there were resources that were underused, such as access the paratransit services that Metro has available were not properly activated and deployed. Now, I've heard different autopsies of the Eaton Fire, and certain things that happened during that particular event because of the high wind and just how quickly that fire escalated made it very, very challenging to do a large number of things that usually happen over the course of the fire event.

Just hearing that there was this whole supportive network of accessible transportation ready to mobilize and go, but because they weren't in the emergency center/operations center, they weren't able to effectively do much. Or they were much further down the chain. Whereas if they had been right in the room where all the highest level of emergency triage and decisions were being made, they probably wouldn't have been able to mobilize in a more methodical fashion.

SNYDER: Yes. It was an unprecedented event in terms of the number of fires and just to scale with the Palisades Fire going, and there was also spot fires. Honestly, I was shocked to see that happening, not that I could see it because I'm blind, but hear that it was happening. [chuckles] I lived in that city for a long time, and to think that that could happen it really scared me. I thought if that's going to happen there in a city that has a lot of resources at their disposal, a town such as Grass Valley, where I live, that could happen, and even worse because there's so much fuel to burn.

RUSSELL DAWSON RAWLINGS: This is Russell again. I think that it's shocking that how quickly we don't remember these things. You pointed out that, for example, Sacramento, one of our critical things that we should constantly be preparing for is flooding. I've heard statistics that our levees are roughly in the same shape as New Orleans' were prior to Katrina. Hearing something like that makes you go, "Oh my gosh, why isn't somebody doing something?" The reality is the will of government budgeting and all of those things, unless there is something actually putting enough pressure to make that first job to do something, nothing happens.

I am proud that at least in the disability community, we had that awareness that we heard, "Hey, power utilities are going to be shutting off power in a strategic fashion to prevent themselves liability during fire conditions, fire seasons." We can't accept that. We're going to do something. That opened the door to doing something, and it's gone on to encourage us to do more than that. Like we're having conversations like this. One of the things that April and I worked on when I was at Resources for Independent Living is that Resources for Independent Living was invited to a table where the mayor of Sacramento and the mayor of West Sacramento had a climate commission, basically, that they put together.

Maybe April can talk a bit more about that. I was the fill-in. April was the fancy commissioner, and I was the one who showed up to meetings when she wasn't or had a meeting conflict. I only got a little bit of it. The good news is, is we're being seen a little. Our organizations are starting to be noticed as that kind of Stephen Hawking geniusness, that's so necessary in these spaces as well. I'll pause and let maybe if April wants to say something about the climate commission, because I do think that that was actually a really good, at least initial-- It's good that we were there.

APRIL DAWNSON RAWLINGS: This is April. That was a couple of years ago now, but I was really honored to be asked to be a part of that body and the fact that you had climate experts and community experts coming together to create draft recommendations for both of the cities on how to handle climate change. One of the things I was the most proud of when I was a part of that body was being able to elevate not just me, but several of my colleagues and I on the commission, we're able to elevate the voices of community leaders in underrepresented communities. When we first were looking at some of the draft recommendations that were being floated, none of them really had an equity component built into them. We worked really hard with the city and the consultants involved, and we were able to bake in some equity metrics, and I was really proud of that work.

That was an example of community leaders, city leaders intentionally inviting different voices to a space, because I think the best hallmark of leadership is knowing that you don't know all the answers, but you know where to find the answer. I think that, luckily, we live in a community that I think our local community really does value the voices of people with disabilities.

Mayor Steinberg at the time in Sacramento, who is a personal friend of Russell's and then also professionally has been a friend to RIL for a long time. He knew about Centers for Independent Living and knew to even ask me to join that. I was going to say, too, I think it's really important for Centers for Independent Living and other disability-led organizations to really make sure that the city and county governments know who they are. Then also for the city and county governments to really reach out to those peer-led disability organizations.

Like Russell said, "Yes, give them a seat on the board." I know at least a few executive directors of ILCs that are on their boards. Or make sure that your systems change advocate is going to all the city council meetings where this is on the agenda. A lot of it is about relationships. It's like if you're in an emergency as an individual, you might call your mom or your husband or whoever's on your emergency contact on your phone. It's the same on a larger scale, is that because these events can happen quickly with little warning and they're increasing in intensity, you need to know who your emergency contacts are. You need to know, like, "Hey, I need to mobilize these lift-equipped ramp buses to get up to the hills because this is where some of the people in nursing homes live, and they need to get evacuated."

I think that relationship-building when we're not in a crisis is key. Also, making sure that when you're doing trainings about how to respond in a disaster with your company or with your government entity or your employees, that you're inviting people with disabilities to be a part of those trainings and really making sure that you're listening to their unique view and their unique needs. It's all about, again, relationship building when you're not in that last-minute crisis. It's the relationships you build before it hits the fan that matters.

SNYDER: First of all, I want to say, well said. Appreciate all that you shared there. What are you both doing personally to prepare? Because I want to be real, even though my title is emergency preparedness specialist and formerly emergency preparedness coordinator, I have not always been the best at being prepared. For example, even at this very moment, my go bag is not ready at the moment. It was ready all last year, but because of my schedule with work and school, and my internship, it's so difficult to find time to do pretty much anything. Especially this life that we live. I think you can relate. We with disabilities, it takes us longer to do things. It eats up more of our time. How are you doing with your personal preparedness?

RUSSELL DAWSON RAWLINGS: I alluded to it a little bit earlier. I'll be honest. I think that for me personally, life just keeps lifing. It is real hard. For me, limited mobility, I rely on the support of PCAs, caregivers quite a lot for my own-- Yes, caregivers. Personal care assistant, PCA. Due to my particular disability, I'm extremely reliant on others. I'll be honest, preparation, putting together a go bag, all of these things sound daunting, and they are. More energy on top of the energy that just getting out of bed really it requires not just myself, but another person as well.

I think there's a real reality that we really do need to meet people where they are. I think that any amount of time that we spend thinking about preparation for what are we going to do is good time. One of my mentors in everything independent living and emergency preparedness related is June Isaacson Kailes. I can hear her voice in my head sometimes saying, "What are you going to do? What are you going to do? What are you going to do?" Go bag is great. It's a go-to, like, yes, it's an easy, quick response. The reality is that it's so much more than that.

I think one of the things that we can all do with minimal effort is make sure that we are in community with others. Because the first thing that's going to happen is that you're going to need other people. Having conversations like this are so critical. By "like this," I mean, getting down into the nuts and bolts of how are you going to be preparing. April and I moved. When we were living our lives separately, we lived together, both of us in different spaces. I've moved from the neighborhood I used to live in, where I felt like I had a lot of community connections and a lot of people to talk about these preparedness issues and just feel like neighbors and that kind of thing. Then I moved downtown, and that's where April joined me, and I had an awareness, and I was like, "I don't know any of my neighbors."

Fortunately, over the past, I think, year and a half, we've really started to get to know a few neighbors, really, honestly. Our little puppy here, Sammy, has helped us because the good thing about this building is there are a lot of people with dogs. Even though it is a very downtown, not a place where people are putting down roots forever type of community, it's a building. There's a lot of people here. The good news is, if something is happening, there are people all around. It's a huge missed opportunity if folks don't think about the best resource you've got are other people and talking together about what can you collectively do together to prepare.

I think the answer is: one, we shouldn't beat ourselves up for what we're not doing yet. Also, one, not losing track that there is work to do. If that go bag is still not done, us just mentioning it out loud means we should spend some time doing it real soon now. We also know that, for example, you're in school full-time, you're working full-time, April's in law school. Even just the other day, we had the awareness that we're not putting enough energy into meal prepping. That means that April's running home and then running out within 10, 15 minutes just because she has to go grab something to eat before class. Wouldn't it be better if the meal part was done and then she could be here for those 30, 45 minutes and we could spend it together?

Anyway, it's that kind of thinking. Putting it off only means that you won't have it when you need it. Also, there are things we shouldn't get held up by the one thing we're not doing, and make sure that we're looking at it as a whole and taking action on things where we can.

SNYDER: I appreciate you mentioning building community. I think that is important in every aspect of life. It reminds me. I know this has been talked about in the past. We call ourselves independent living centers, but it's truly interdependent living. I think about Mark Fenicle, who was a board member of FREED, who recently died. He really made it clear that we can't alienate people because we need each other. I think that it's not just for people with disabilities. I think it goes for everyone. There needs to be solidarity and community just for us to survive, especially now.

RUSSELL DAWSON RAWLINGS: This is Russell. I totally agree. It's the most powerful thing we can do. I've had this conversation over and over with people as part when I tell my story of how I connected with independent living centers and such. Everyone's got such a unique story as to how they came to find out about independent living centers. For me, honestly, it was out of necessity, one. Two, there was this just complete revelation for myself that I had been missing this opportunity to connect with the disability community for a good, at that point, 20 years. Like I missed out. I didn't understand that there was value in it. It's hard to call me a 20 ableist, but I definitely formed all those things.

I can actively think back to my childhood, where I thought that when I went to PT and OT at a rehab center that I was being punished. I thought it was so weird that I was being taken out of everywhere that I knew and felt comfortable and made to go do this thing that I felt like almost nobody else did. Instead of thinking, "Oh, maybe there are some cool people here," I just couldn't put my head in that space. Anyway, I think you're right. I think it's just we got to look for community everywhere. There's never a bad opportunity to be able to think about being in community with others.

SNYDER: What say you, April?

APRIL DAWSON RAWLINGS: For me personally, I did some practical things to get ready in case of a disaster. I gathered all of our legal documents. I know where our legal document box is. I made sure it was light enough where I could grab it. I have medical supplies that I need to access every four to six hours, or I will get sick. I always make sure that I have my bag packed at all times, no matter what.

Those are the practical things. A lot of what Russell said is what I would say is that I feel like in the world right now, there's a real pressure to see the world in tribal ways and to see the world as just your community of interest and that there's a pie, and that if I take a certain slice of the pie, it means other people are going to get a smaller slice. Then that's how a lot of people are being encouraged to view the world right now.

I really think what's beautiful about the disability community and how rich the disaster preparedness conversation is that the disability community, it forces you to see the world interdependently and to realize that you're a part of a larger community and that what a small decision that you might think is a small decision on your part how that affects others in a way that you may not have even realized.

I do make sure that I check on people. I know one of the things that I told Russell when we first got together was I keep a list on my phone of all my introverted friends' names, and I check on them once a month just to make sure they're doing okay. I always put a little check mark if I haven't heard from someone, and then I circle back with them. I'm the convener of a lot of my friends. Then, as my life has gotten a little bit busier, I realize that I need to put more things in place because I need to make sure that that doesn't fall away just because I have added more to my plate.

I just think it's important for us to just, as Russell said, be in community with others and realize that we really don't have the luxury to be alone in this the way the world is right now. We need to double down on the fact that we need each other, and that our diversity is our strength and that people with disabilities are people who are adaptable and intelligent and who add something to the conversation that wouldn't be there if we weren't in the room. We are missing out on a really key piece of how to operate a lot of this. That's what I have to say about that.

WILLIAMS: That was April Dawson Rawlings and Russell Dawson Rawlings in conversation with Brian Snyder about emergency preparedness in the disability community.

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WILLIAMS: That does it for the show. Disability Rap is produced and edited by Carl Sigmond and me, Courtney Williams. You can go to our website, disabilityrap.org, to listen to past shows, read transcripts, and subscribe to the Disability Rap podcast. You can also subscribe to our podcast by searching Disability Rap on any of the major podcast platforms. We're brought to you by KVMR in partnership with FREED, and we're distributed by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. For Brian Snyder, I'm Courtney Williams with another edition of Disability Rap.