Disabled Power: A Storm, a Grid, and Embodied Harm in the Age of Disaster

A call to place disability at the center of climate and disaster responses

Every disaster is a disability disaster, argues Angela Frederick. Disabled Power tells the stories of Texans with disabilities who endured the 2021 Texas power crisis, which forced millions of Texas residents to endure a dayslong winter storm without heat or water. Based on 58 in-depth interviews with disabled Texans and parents of disabled children, Frederick highlights how disabled people and those with chronic health conditions are uniquely harmed when basic infrastructure such as power and water systems fail. She argues that the vulnerability people with disabilities experienced during this disaster was not an inevitable consequence of individual disabled bodies. Rather, disability vulnerability was ＂produced＂ by policies that ＂disabled＂ vital infrastructure.

Frederick also emphasizes another meaning of the phrase ＂disabled power: ＂ the individual and collective resilience and creativity Texans with disabilities exercised to survive the disaster. Despite common perceptions of people with disabilities as passive victims, Frederick shows how many found strategies to survive and to provide and receive care within their communities. Ultimately, the implications of this disaster extend far beyond Texas and underscore our increased vulnerability to infrastructural failures as extreme weather events become more common. Disabled Power offers a blueprint for reimagining vulnerability and resilience to center people with disabilities in disaster research and emergency response.

Angela Frederick is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at El Paso.