Emergency Planning for People with Disabilities

Emergencies are situations that are unexpected, sudden, and often dangerous. Some emergencies are caused by natural disasters, such as a flood or tornado. Some are man-made disasters, such as an act of terrorism. Other emergencies may involve a person or their family, such as an accident or medical emergency. For people with disabilities and their families, emergencies could result in a disruption of services and supports that they need to stay safe and healthy. It is important to create an Emergency Plan now — before an emergency or disaster happens.

Emergency Management Be Prepared Kit

The Emergency Management Be Prepared Kit helps you to create your own emergency preparedness plan. The kit includes several forms and checklists for you to complete:

• Emergency plan for your home
• Emergency plan for when you go to a shelter
• Personal list of your needs to give to the shelter
• Checklist of important people and papers
• Health information card (PDF file)

More Emergency Planning Resources

• Shelter Needs Checklist (Word file)
  A checklist for shelter staff to use to meet the needs of people with disabilities seeking shelter who need reasonable accommodations as required by law.
• Ohio Emergency Operations Plan - Functional Needs (PDF file)
  County Emergency Management Agencies should be in compliance with this part of the Ohio Emergency Operations Plan in their county's Emergency Operations plan.
• Emergency Preparation Resources and Links
  List of links to state and national resources for people with disabilities and first responders.

Some links in this section are to documents created in Adobe® Portable Document Format (PDF). To view and print PDF documents, you need to have Adobe® Reader®, a free software program, installed on your computer. Download Adobe® Reader®

• Emergency Planning