Evacuating Elderly Citizens During a Disaster

When a disaster occurs, the elderly are the most vulnerable and most impacted; they require a disaster-response team to build mitigating expertise and take precautionary efforts in the evacuation process.

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Two men helped their sick elderly relative cross the Mangunkerta road which was previously closed by a landslide in Cijedil Village, Cugenang District, Cianjur Regency, West Java, Saturday (26/11/2022).

Evacuating elderly citizens, especially those with dementia or senile dementia, to a safer place during a disaster is not an easy task. It takes extra effort and mitigating skills on the part of volunteers and disaster-response team officers to evacuate them as soon as possible. Persuasion may have to be employed to convince them to move.

The eruption of Mount Semeru on Dec. 4. forced the residents to flee the danger zone for safer places. The rescue team was deployed to help them in the evacuation. However, when it came to dealing with elderly residents, the evacuation task became more challenging, as shown in several videos circulating on social media.

Video footage shows a number of residents and volunteers attempting to evacuate a grandmother. Already standing near the door with a mat in her hands, she looked hesitant to leave the house. The volunteers tried to persuade her by saying that her son was waiting for her. It did not work because they failed to mention the name of the grandmother's child.

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In another video, a different group of volunteers tried to persuade the same grandmother. The tone of the ordering voice was high and somewhat aggressive, demanding that the grandmother abandon the house immediately. The volunteers mentioned the name of someone the grandmother might know and told her the location of the evacuation shelter. They also told her that they had attended to her concern, which was to ensure that the door was locked before going to the shelter.

Only then was the grandmother willing to go. She complained about a volunteer’s face being so grim in giving the order to flee that she trembled.

When a disaster occurs, it may be necessary that a member of the family accompany the [disaster-response team] members in their evacuation

Muhammad Fath Mashuri, a disaster-mitigation psychologist and lecturer at the School of Psychology, the University of Muhammadiyah, Malang, East Java, said on Monday (5/12) that the elderly develop vulnerability due to a decrease in physical and cognitive functions.

The elderly are often physically frail, causing them to shake when walking, endure blurred vision and deteriorate in hearing. They suffer from a number of degenerative diseases and cognitive memory lapses. Some of them experience dementia or senility with varying degrees of severity.

"Due to their being in such a condition, when a disaster occurs, it may be necessary that a member of the family accompany the [disaster-response team] members in their evacuation," Fath said.

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An elderly woman is carried by a man from a refugee tent to a health checkpoint in Pakuon village, Sukaresmi District, Cianjur Regency, West Java, Sunday (27/11/2022)..

He said the resistance to evacuation from some community members, especially senior citizens, could lead to frustration and aggressive manners on the part of the evacuation staff in the form of high-pitched or harsh statements, emotional displays or seeming lack of empathy.

Lathifah Hanum, a psychologist on aging from the University of Indonesia, said elderly people were prone to overanxiety, panic and insecurity during a disaster.

When a volunteer whom they are not familiar with speaks loudly or shouts, an elderly person will step back, making it more difficult to evacuate.

On the other hand, while feeling fear in the face of danger is inherently human, working under pressure because of limited time in a life-threatening situation also makes the evacuation team frantic.

Hanum said the evacuation team would need to practice restraint in coping with dementia-suffering elderly people who are more sensitive to an unfriendly approach and therefore resistant to the evacuation efforts. If evacuation workers panic, evacuees, particularly the elderly, panic too, she said.

"When a volunteer whom they are not familiar with speaks loudly or shouts, an elderly person will step back, making it more difficult to evacuate," she said.

Restraint

For elderly residents who become completely dependent, difficult to communicate with or end up in bed due to serious illness or severe dementia, they can be stretchered right away. However, for those who can still communicate, evacuation needs to be done persuasively with restraint.

Dealing with such a situation requires evacuation-team members to build good communication skills and restraint. This rule applies in any situation, not only in treating the elderly. Restraining emotion enables evacuation personnel to explain the mission’s purpose without being provoked into an unnecessarily harsh attitude, so that the evacuees will understand more easily.

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Empowering elderly people with knowledge about disaster mitigation also ought to be done in the hope that it can help fellow senior citizens.

Fath said if persuasive efforts did not work and the situation was critical, forced evacuation was recommended, with caution against physical harm.

However, Hanum emphasized that forced evacuation of elderly residents might have consequences with evacuees likely to endure trauma in post-disaster life.

Evacuation workers and volunteers also need to understand the culture of the local community to allow well-received disaster-response efforts.

This article was translated by Musthofid.