SNAP is the Special Needs Voluntary Registry that’s been set up as part of Los Angeles county’s emergency preparedness plan. The Registry allows anyone with physical disabilities or other limitations to register to facilitate the planning and implementation of disaster response by first-responder agencies. If you (or the person you are registering) live in Los Angeles County and have any conditions which might impede your abilities to evacuate a building, travel to or stay safely in an emergency evacuation center, or to securely shelter in place without assistance, then you may want to consider enrolling in the Registry. You can get more information at the LA County SNAP website here. If you don’t live in LA County, you might want to see if a similar program is available in your area.
Burbank Senior Artists Colony residents will recognize The Pink Lady in the video below!
Contributed by Maureen Kellen-Taylor
This signing-up process is incredibly important. While it’s possible to live with difficulty in a home or apartment that isn’t very accessible to wheelchairs or crutches, and in day-to-day living a person with a handicap can (barely) make it work, the problem comes in an emergency, when suddenly there’s two problems: the original disabling feature such as poor blood circulation to the feet, or dizziness from Parkinson’s, and now there’s the second problem of smoke from a fire or broken steps from an earthquake. It’s when there’s an emergency like one of these that these people “slip through the cracks”, and are unable to help themselves – when everything goes perfectly day-to-day, then can make it up the stairs, wheel their chair up a steep ramp, etc., but when there’s a real emergency, that extra problem suddenly makes getting out of the house too difficult. Good for the county for setting up this registry and getting thing set ahead of time – this kind of forward-thinking seems low-priority, but in the long run, it saves lives!