Disaster planning for disabled is a 'SNAP' away

By Alan Toy

The wildfires that recently raged throughout Southern California reminded us yet again how susceptible we are to natural — and man-made — disasters. Almost a million people were evacuated from homes; some hospitals and nursing homes were forced to move patients to shelters.

But not all shelters were adequately prepared to accept evacuees with "special needs" — and some of these medically and psychologically fragile evacuees were "re-moved" to other settings. Others were laid out on the floor, with masking tape on their foreheads to identify their specific medical conditions.

The 2000 U.S. Census puts the number of people with significant disabilities in Los Angeles County at nearly 1 million. There is currently no good way to locate them — many live in their own homes — or to ascertain what their needs will be if they are required to evacuate. There is no registry, either of people with specific needs or of currently existing community resources to help meet those needs.

Inquiring minds might ask why these registries weren't established throughout California decades ago. We know that our state is prone to disasters and that we are also a prime target for terrorist attacks. In 2006, the Little Hoover Commission reported that the state must create such a registry so that emergency management officials know where vulnerable people live and work.

Why have we been so slow to act? The answer may lie in the fact that the specific needs of the elderly and disabled are complex and widely divergent. They include alternative transportation and communication, medical and other equipment, appropriate beds, medicines and much more.

A new project that can assist with this problem has been under development at the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge. It uses Geographic Information Systems mapping to locate resources and the people who will need them. The project, called Specific Needs Awareness Planning (SNAP) Maps, has been funded with state Homeland Security grants.

The project organizes and maps data of three different kinds. First are "people" data, indicating where the most vulnerable people live and congregate and what their specific post-disaster needs are. Second, the project maps and details the accessibility features of pre-planned reception and evacuation centers. Third, it identifies hundreds of community resources that can assist with the post-disaster needs of the disabled.

The city and county of Los Angeles have made commitments for funding, but it has been slow in coming. SNAP could have been utilized in these past weeks if the project time-lines had been met.

SNAP is a big step forward, but it will take the dedication of many stakeholders to make it work. For a registry to be fully successful, there must be a campaign to build public awareness of who is eligible and why they should register.

Will this kind of disaster planning address everyone's needs? Certainly not. But by bringing a part of the problem into more specific focus, Los Angeles can provide a model for the nation's other urban areas. Do we really need to wait for the next disaster to strike before planning for our most vulnerable residents?

Toy is associate director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge in the School of Public Affairs.