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ILLUSTRATION BY SHIDEH GHANDEHARIZADEH / NEXTGENRADIO
Disability and Climate Change: Mobility Issues Complicate Man’s Evacuation from Home During Flood
Click here for audio transcript
I’m Kathleen Lees with NPR’s NextGenRadio in St. Louis.
Earlier this year, St. Louis dealt with record rainfall, and many people needed to evacuate their homes because of flooding.
St. Ann resident Brent Jaimes was one of them.
He’s been diagnosed with POEMS, which is a blood disorder that affects his nervous system and has caused significant mobility issues for him.
BRENT:
It’s an incredibly rare disease. It’s not the first one you’re going to look for. And when I say rare, I mean it’s three people in a million.
My name is Brent Jaimes and I am 64 years old.
It had been raining really hard all evening and into the night. And I’m kind of a light sleeper anyway. And I’d been aware that we were on a creek and I thought, Man, it’s really raining hard.
It was way up in the driveway. It was not in the house yet, but it was three feet away. And within about half an hour or an hour, water was coming in the back room through the door.
It’s a pretty hopeless feeling because you can’t stop it. I mean, it’s coming in.
The floors in each room on the first floor were completely covered with water. And as we were walking around, pulling our hair out, trying to figure out how to respond, and the flooring is literally floating up under our feet.
There was a ton of stuff that needed to be done right away, getting stuff up and out of the water, none of which or very little of which I could do. It even (got) to a point when the wheelchair gets wet, you know, it’s hard to push it because my hands slip off of it.
When we were evacuated later in the morning, about six in the morning and the rain had really started to slow down the water, it started rolling out of the house. We weren’t really expecting to be evacuated. And yeah, it was a little absurd seeing them pull a boat up in the front yard.
It was a little tricky getting out from my house to the boat to be hauled off. And for me, I wanted to be absolutely certain that whatever I was going to take, that I needed to move around. I needed to take that with me. So that’s a wheelchair and a walker.
Well, climate change has affected me because I think we’ve seen an increase in really bad weather in the last, you know, five years, I mean.
We’ve had two flooding incidents right here in his neighborhood, which has never happened, you know, in anybody’s recollection prior. I mean, I know that as temperatures increase, the warm air can hold more moisture. That moisture is going to go somewhere and it comes down in the form of rain or snow and we end up with the flooding. So, yeah, I mean, I think the bad weather that we’ve seen in this zip code has really increased because of changes in the climate.
14:05 you know, like with, with other types of disasters, like a fire, you know, it’s probably limited to a certain area of the house. It’s not constant that it’s not very often that an entire house burns to the ground. But when the water comes in, you know, it’s not it’s going wherever it goes, you know, it’s it’s and you can’t keep it out. There’s no fire extinguisher for water. Right?
40:16 We’ll definitely move. Not necessarily because of climate change, but to a more accessible one level house. And I can tell you, we will not be near a creek. Um, there’s just, you know, there’s no reason to be anywhere near a creek.
Evacuating your home during a natural disaster, such as flooding, can be frightening for anyone, but there may be additional challenges for those with disabilities.
Brent Jaimes, a St. Ann resident, was at his home when record rainfall hit the St. Louis region on July 26, 2022–forcing many residents to abandon houses and apartments due to the flooding.
“It’s a pretty hopeless feeling because you can’t stop it,” he says, “I mean it’s coming in.”
But leaving wasn’t an easy option for Jaimes–not just because roads were impassable–but due to his limited mobility.
“There was a ton of stuff that needed to be done right away, getting stuff up and out of the water, none of which or very little of which I could do,” says Jaimes. “And even get to a point when the wheelchair gets wet, you know, it’s hard to push it because my hands slip off of it.”
Jaimes was diagnosed with POEMS syndrome in 2019–a blood disorder that damages nerve and muscle function. Though his symptoms from the disorder have continued to improve with physical therapy, it has left him largely wheelchair-bound.
“It’s an incredibly rare disease,” Jaimes says. “And when I say rare, I mean three people in a million.”
The Intersection of Climate Change and Disability
About 15% of the world’s population is estimated to be disabled, according to the World Health Organization. And the number of individuals with a disability is increasing due to demographic trends and chronic health conditions. In fact, it’s estimated that almost everyone will experience some type of disability in his or her lifetime–either temporary or permanent.
People with disabilities are often stigmatized and more likely to receive poor quality services and deal with strenuous physical barriers. However, they are frequently left behind in activism efforts.
Jaimes said disasters such as flooding are unlike others, including fire, in that the damage can be limited to certain areas of the house.
“It’s not very often that an entire house burns to the ground. But when the water comes in, you know, it’s going wherever it goes, you know, and you can’t keep it out. There’s no fire extinguisher for water.”
Jaimes says that climate change has continually been a problem near his home over the last five years, particularly for flooding.
“We’ve had two flooding incidents right here in this neighborhood, which has never happened, you know,” he says. “I know that as temperatures increase, the warm air can hold more moisture. That moisture is going to go somewhere and it comes down in the form of rain or snow and we end up with flooding.”
Jaimes was evacuated in a boat in his wheelchair during the July flooding.
“For me, I wanted to be absolutely certain that whatever I was going to take, that I needed to move around,” he says. “So that’s a wheelchair and a walker.”
Life After Disaster
When Jaimes could finally return to his home, he found that much of the furniture and floorboards were ruined. Fortunately, friends and family offered to help in the recovery process, but some family keepsakes were lost.
“My mother was a choral director forever. So they had records of their performances in the ‘40s on these little crazy 78 records. And as they got wet, they became delaminated. So a lot of those were ruined, which of course can’t be replaced.”
But life goes on. And Jaimes isn’t letting his diagnosis stop that.
He continues to work as a union attorney from home and dabbles in documentary filmmaking. In addition, he’s gained a lot of muscle and nerve function back by going to therapy and following the Challenged Athletes Foundation, an organization that provides opportunities to people with physical challenges so they can lead active lifestyles and compete in athletic events.
“I don’t worry about what I can’t do,” Jaimes says. “There are definitely things I can’t do and I’ll get help. But up until that point, I’ll try to figure out some way to do it. And I can recognize the fact that if I can’t do it in September doesn’t mean I won’t be able to do it in November, December.”
Brent Jaimes, a union attorney and documentary filmmaker, sits in the yard outside his home on Sept. 12, 2022, in St. Ann, Mo. He had to evacuate his home during catastrophic flooding in July.
KATHLEEN LEES/NPR Next Generation Radio
Debris from the flooding lies outside the entrance to Brent Jaimes’ home on Sept. 12, 2022, in St. Ann, Mo. There is still a lot of clean up that needs to be done. KATHLEEN LEES/NEXTGENRADIO
