TITLE
Recommendation to request City Manager to direct the Fire Chief to report to the City Council on the status of the letter of participation, and how the City of Long Beach and its residents can participate in the County of Los Angeles Special Needs Awareness Program (SNAP) Voluntary Registry.
DISCUSSION
The County of Los Angeles operates a Special Needs Assessment Plan Voluntary Registry. The purpose of this registry is to facilitate the planning and implementation of disaster response by first-responder agencies to persons with special needs living in the County of Los Angeles. The registry is a project of the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management in cooperation with other cities and agencies in the Los Angeles County disaster response operational area.
The Special Needs Disaster Registry is a voluntary program for those persons in Los Angeles County who may need specific disability-related assistance and/or accommodations in the event of a major disaster.
Special accommodations and assistance needs may include communicating through alternative means, requiring specialized paratransit services, life sustaining medications or equipment, etc.
Persons living in Los Angeles County and having any conditions that might impede with their abilities to evacuate a building, travel to or stay safely in an emergency evacuation center, or to securely shelter in place without assistance, can enroll in the Registry. Such conditions include:
· Physical disabilities
· Cardiac and/or respiratory circumstances
· Developmental disabilities
· Emotional or psychiatric disabilities
· Deafness or hearing loss
· Blindness or severe vision loss
· Speech impairments
· Short-term disabilities
· Reliance on technologies that use electricity
· Using medications
· Participation in a home delivery program
· Need specialized paratransit vehicles
· Experience seizures
· Immune system deficiencies
· Communicable diseases
· Severe chemical or other allergies
Should a disaster strike in Long Beach, this registry can be used to enhance the efficiency of those agencies called upon to respond. Enrollees are not prioritized for first consideration or evacuation.
However the responding agencies will use this information to maximize their capacity to serve those with special needs, both in the planning and preparation process, as well as in their actual post-disaster response.
Enrollment in the Special Needs Registry is completelv voluntarv. The information provider could help to save lives. Information submitted on this registry form is for the purpose of planning and coordinating emergency responses. The information will not be shared with unauthorized personnel or organizations.
Release of this information to authorized agencies and personnel (which may include first responders such as local fire departments, police and/or sheriff's departments; shelter personnel; emergency operations managers, etc.) will occur only for the purpose of effecting the delivery of aid to enrollees.
Emergency responders wilt attempt to use the registry to enhance their response ca pacities and to better understand the enrollees' specific accommodation needs, taking into consideration the necessity to allocate their resources across the impacted areas.
STATUS
Currently, the Long Beach Fire Department cannot access the information contained in the SNAP Registry. A letter of participation must be executed between the County and the City of Long Beach to allow Fire and Police personnel to have access to the registry. Additionally, Long Beach residents need to be made aware that this program exists and encouraged to enroll.
SUGGESTED ACTION
Approve recommendation.
Respectfully Submitted,
COUNCILWOMAN GERRIE SCHIPSKE
FIFTH DISTRICT
COUNCILWOMAN RAE GABELICH
EIGHTH DISTRICT