In view of the deadly wildfire of January, the leaders of the Los Angeles County are weighing an disaster registry to help the disabled and are connected to senior residents to bring emergency respondents to bring security during disasters.
County supervisor Approves a feasibility study This spring for such a voluntary database. Supporters appreciated more than 1 million county residents with some type of disability to give more notice and assistance, such as cognitive loss or limited mobility.
“If we know that people are destroyed in these situations, what are our answers?” Hillary Norton said, which runs a fastlinkadatla, a non -profit focused on mobility issues. “It’s time that people actually have time to understand magnitude when such things happen.”
Between the increasing frequency of natural disasters in the US – brought into a rapid relief by Recently deadly floods in Texas – State and local governments from Oregon to Northern Carolina have moved to disaster registries to prioritize help for weaker residents on fire, storm and others. Environmental catastrophe strike. But when some politicians say that these registries are a possible solution to a public health problem, many disability advocates see them as ineffective tools that give people a false sense of safety because there is no guarantee of clearance help.
“They are described in such a way that if you keep your information in this registry and you will need help, they will be able to plan for it, so you will be safe in a disaster. And in fact, it’s not just the case,” Maria Town, President of the Union Union and CEO said that with disability.
The town, which has a cerebral palsy, was for six months in Houston Hurricane Harvey Hit in 2017. Texas makes a free registry called Texas Emergency Assistance Registry available for the city and counties, which helps them identify the needs in their communities, but how or if they use it then it is above them. Less than 5% of the registered people were contacted during Harvey, and even low withdrawal aid, according to A 2023 studies The National Council on Disability, a federal agency that advises on disability policies and programs. storm Killed 89 people,
“I heard that people say, ‘I thought I was safe. I registered,” Town said about those calls during and later during Harvey.
Neither the Texas Division of Emergency Management nor Ker County, the recent floods in Texas Hill Country in the region answered questions by the most difficult areas of floods whether a housing was built for the residents on the registry in early July.
Many registries, such as Special requirement of Florida RegistryExplain clearly to the participants that they should still make their withdrawal plans. The Florida Department oversees the registry and like Texas, shares information for their use with local emergency management authorities. In Rockingam County of Northern Carolina, individuals have to apply to be on the registry, and not guarantee inclusion. The Registry page for Jackson and Josephine Counties in Oregon has warned that it may take up to three months to provide residents to save information.
The National Council on Disability says that registries are harmful. “They are ineffective and provide a false sense of protection of future guarantee assistance,” Nicholas Sabula, a spokesman of the organization.
California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services also “Strongly discourages“Using registries, stating that they can prevent people from making their disaster planning and increase privacy concerns. Disability advocates have also cited privacy as a concern.
But behind the registry’s effort, the politicians of Los Angeles insist that they are worth seeing – at least one -third who were killed in Eaton Fire, there were issues that could affect their mobility and hence had their ability to run on the face of disaster, A Los Angeles Times AnalysisAnthony Michelle Senior, an Emita in a wheelchair, and his 35 -year -old son, Justin, who had cerebral palsy, were among the 18 people, when the Wildfire exploded through the Los Angeles County’s Altadeena in January.
Further initiative is the aging of LA County’s population: The Demographical Research Unit of the Finance Department of California has estimated that the Los Angeles County County will have more than a quarter of residents over 60 or 2030 – approximately 2.5 million people.
Jason Ryan/Narfoto through Getty Image 
Supervisor Catherine Bargar, who represents Altadeena and Registry study proposed Observer with Supervisor Jennis Han, “According to his Communications Director Helen Chavez Garcia,” wants to drill down and detect its utility. ” According to Chavez Garcia, Burgar had not yet spoken to the respondent community or interacted about how emergency services would use the registry.
Victoria Jump, an assistant director in the County’s Aging and Disabilities Department, is conducting the feasibility study – which he has noted that the cost is not involved – and this month the supervisors will a recommendation to the board of the supervisors whether to support the project. The board will decide whether to move forward or not. Jump said it is receiving a large extent positive response in more than a dozen community sessions.
This is not the first time Los Angeles has considered a disaster registry and even implemented. County maintained a voluntary disaster registry, called a specific requirement awareness scheme, but in 2016 admitted that the program “did not guarantee the priority service for those” and “had low returns on investment”. It was closed, and the registrars were migrated into a large emergency alert system Alert la county,
Jun Kelis, a resident of Los Angeles, said, “We have already been with County. It did not work. It has not worked across the country.”
Kelly saw what happened as a problem with an emergency plan in Eaton Fire, saying that County needs to understand how to offer emergency transport to disabled people. He pointed to Galen Bakawalter, who is allegedly a paralyzed Eaton Fire Survivor Runned your motorized wheelchair To empty a mile in darkness when he realized that it would be impossible to choose it for a riding-hyling service.
Mobility Norton of Non -Group Fastlinkdatla said that the registry should be more about more than collecting the names of the disabled residents. “Nobody wants to make false hope,” Norton said. “This is an agreement to detect the possibilities. It is now a balance to ask, so that in the next disaster, they are no longer left behind.”
KFF Health News There is a national news room that produces intensive journalism about health issues and is one of the main operating programs Malevolent – Independent sources for health policy research, voting and journalism.
