The Los Angeles-area fires of early 2025 highlighted for our Undivided community how important it is to coordinate disability-specific supports during a natural disaster.
In addition to wildfires, disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, tornados, gas leaks, or pandemics (we all know that one now) pose a danger to our families and our homes. Even much smaller-scale events like power outages can seriously disrupt safety for families with children who rely on medical devices or who struggle to handle the unexpected. Emergencies are rare, so we don’t want to create more alarm and anxiety for our kids, but we do need to prepare just in case.
A study from the National Institutes of Health shows that most households with a child with a disability are underprepared for a disaster. Less than half of families in the study actually had an emergency plan and supplies prepared, and 90% of families had never practiced their plan.
We’re here to change that! Check out these tips to help you consider your children’s unique needs, how you would support them in an emergency, and where to find resources for a family emergency plan. For insights, we reached out to Vance Taylor, Chief of the Office of Access and Functional Needs at the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services; Tamara Rodriguez, Officer for Emergency Preparedness & Response at the Department of Developmental Services; Kate Movius, who provides disability training to first responders through her company Autism Interaction Solutions; and Jessica Coker-Lentz, an Undivided Navigator and parent who had to evacuate the LA fires with her family.
There are two main things to consider when you’re preparing for an emergency:
Both of these situations involve making sure you have everything your family needs on hand, easy to access, with backups available.
A common recommendation for disaster preparedness is to have an emergency kit or “go bag” with everything your family would need for at least 72 hours — that’s three days’ worth of food, water, clothing, and medical supplies for each person in your family (and pets or service animals, if you have them). Jessica Coker-Lentz, who has recent experience being displaced by a disaster, shares that three days doesn’t mean three of each thing — if your child goes through more than one set of underwear per day, for example, pack extras accordingly. She recommends having a full week’s worth of supplies ready if you have the space. Be sure to consider the weather in your area when planning for spare clothing.
Basic supplies can include nonperishable food, drinking water, a weather radio for emergency alerts, a first aid kit, and a backup phone charger. Here’s a sample emergency supply list from Ready.gov. You’ll also want to include copies of identity documents for everyone in the family and proof of residency, which can help you get financial assistance from FEMA faster after a natural disaster. Families who have kids with specialized medical needs and/or developmental disabilities will also want to add these extra items:
Tamara Rodriguez says, “For families with children with specialized medical needs or developmental disabilities, planning before an emergency can take extra time but is key to protecting their health and well-being. To start, families and their support teams should think through the child’s daily activities and write down a list of items they rely on every day. In the event of an evacuation, these items would need to be included in their go bag.“
Drexel University has a page with downloadable checklists designed for families raising kids with physical disabilities, intellectual disabilities, and vision or hearing loss, so be sure to check them out for more ideas of additional items to include and ways to prepare based on your child’s specific support needs. For example, if your child requires refrigerated medications, you can ask your doctor for ways to keep them cool during an emergency.
Keep your family’s emergency supplies in a secure but accessible place in your home. You might want to store them in something that’s easily portable, such as a backpack for each member of your family.
✅ Parent tip: Coker-Lentz recommends that if you need to store supplies anywhere other than already packed in your emergency kit, such as backup medication in the fridge or a favorite weighted blanket in your child’s bedroom, keep a printed list of everything you would need to bring with you during an evacuation, plus where it is in your home. That way, if you have only a few minutes to grab everything you need, you can run down your checklist.
Our article about supporting kids with complex medical needs has tips for obtaining and storing spare medications and supplies along with other emergency prep considerations, like making sure you have a backup power supply for medical equipment that requires electricity. Here are some tips specifically for medical devices:
It’s smart to keep a smaller kit with basic supplies in your car in case you’re stuck somewhere and can’t get home immediately. You might want to include a change of clothes and snacks for each member of the family, a first aid kit, plus spares of your child’s medications, extra water, blankets, and a hand-crank flashlight/radio (so you don’t have batteries sitting in a hot car).
Speaking of your car, is your gas tank kept full enough for an unexpected evacuation? Rodriguez says, “Think through travel options to get you and your child to a safe location. Be sure that you always have a reasonable amount of gas to avoid having to try and gas up during an emergency.”
Another tip to prep: sign up for emergency alerts from your city/county and from your utility companies (gas, electric, water, etc.) so that you’ll be notified as soon as possible about unsafe conditions or potential outages, including planned outages. This website lets you find your state’s emergency management service so you can sign up for alerts. You should also learn where the utility shutoffs are around your home in case you need to turn off power to prevent damage during a disaster.
Download apps from the NOAA and FEMA to your phone so that you’ll get alerts in the event of a natural disaster and be able to access resources like local shelter information. The Watch Duty app provides information specific to wildfires. You can also proactively follow your city’s local Facebook page; Coker-Lentz says you don’t have to be active on social media, but in the event of a disaster, this is one of the easiest ways to stay up to date about community resources.
Make a recurring appointment on your calendar to review and refresh your emergency kit once a year. You can change out your child’s spare clothes and shoes with bigger sizes, replace first aid supplies, toss expired granola bars, check flashlight batteries, update toys and comfort items, etc.
If your child relies on medical supplies and/or equipment, you might want to check your emergency store of backup items more frequently, such as once per month.
Once you have your kit assembled, you hope you’ll never have to use it, but it’s important to talk to your family about what’s in it and why you might use it.
Talk to your kids about emergencies. What is an emergency, and how do you know? How do you behave in an emergency? Your kids might have participated in school emergency drills, so they might have an idea about loud alarms and leaving the building in a single-file line, but a natural disaster at home could look very different. Emergency responders might show up and yell directions at them, or their caretaker might be hurt and unable to communicate.
Developmentally appropriate family discussions can help your child understand that something scary could happen, but you have a plan for keeping them safe. Here are some visual stories, videos, and other resources to help you talk about emergency prep with your child:
Many of our kids are visual learners, so you can start your emergency plan by drawing a simple map of your house and the area just outside. If there’s an emergency at home, like a fire or a flood, where should everyone in the family meet? Mark this location on your map. Set aside time to practice this part of the plan. For example, you could set off the test noise on your fire alarm and have everyone in the family practice grabbing their emergency kit backpack and meeting up at your evacuation spot. You might want to create a chart with pictures of each step and post it in your home so that it’s easy to follow.
Extra considerations:
What if your family members get separated during a natural disaster and you need to meet up somewhere other than home?
Maybe you choose a safe location in the community or a friend’s home. Evacuating somewhere familiar can help minimize alarm for your child. You’ll also want to make a plan for how you will meet up with your child if an emergency occurs while they are at school or day care, and communicate this plan to the facility administrator. Kate Movius says, “Some classrooms actually facilitate this, where they have comfortable things for them and a little note that says, ‘We will see you soon,’ or photos of parents and family — things that can soothe the child if there is some sort of separation in a disaster.” You can ask your child’s providers to include an evacuation plan in their file just in case an emergency occurs during a session.
What if your child doesn’t have a trusted adult with them and needs to get help?
You could help your child practice saying a short phrase, or if they are nonspeaking, preparing for an emergency could look like adding options to their AAC device and practicing using them.
Taylor says, “I tell people to come up with a list of, let’s say, five people. These are friends, family, people you can rely on who can help you evacuate when the time comes. The hope is that at least one of those five people is going to be available when you need. Talking to them about what your needs are and explaining what you’re going to want in terms of support when it comes to emergency evacuation is essential. That list cost me $0 to put together, and yet it can save my life.”
In an emergency, your child might have to communicate their disability and their support needs to strangers and first responders without you around, so help your child practice short, easy-to-memorize phrases. If you worry about your child’s ability to memorize or communicate this information, a medical bracelet or other wearable ID can help emergency responders understand your child’s needs.
The importance of practicing your family emergency plan
Dealing with the unexpected can be hard for our kids, so we have to anticipate that loud sounds, power fluctuations, stressed adults, and other extreme changes during a disaster could trigger behaviors that will be a challenge to our kids’ safety. Practicing what to do in an emergency can help our kids stay safe by making our plans more natural and familiar to them, so don’t neglect to practice. Of course, regularly practicing will have more impact than a one-time event. A common recommendation is reviewing your plan and practicing it at least every six months (a great time to make sure all the smoke detectors in your home are working!). Practicing regularly also gives you a chance to update anything outdated in your plan.
Movius recommends practicing your family evacuation plan more often — once per month, depending on your family’s needs:
She reminds us that practice is beneficial for us adults too! She says, “Often, when an emergency or crisis hits, our minds just go blank. We might have practiced, we might have trained, and we cannot think of what to say or do or what this 911 dispatcher needs to know, so have a checklist on the fridge. Make it easy on yourselves. Take a picture of it and have it in your phone, but also have it just old school on the fridge so that you know exactly what to say to 911.”
During an emergency, your family will likely need to get help from people who have little understanding of developmental disability and whose training sadly might not have included individuals with a variety of disabilities.
Movius, who has been training first responders in Los Angeles through Autism Interaction Solutions for thirteen years, encourages parents to start reaching out to local fire and police departments to make sure first responders are aware of their family’s needs in case there’s an emergency. You can use this tool to look up your nearest police station by your zip code, or find your local fire station on the National Fire Department Registry. In this video clip, Movius offers a sample script for your phone call:
Movius says, “Another thing that families can do is to check and see if there is any kind of registry or signup online. So much easier to do than even picking up the phone. You can go to the website of your police department, type in ‘special needs registry’ or ‘registry.’ The [Los Angeles] sheriff’s department does have a voluntary special needs registry, which means that if you fill it out, your address will be flagged, so that in the event of a 911 call, the responding officers will be told by dispatch that there is somebody with special needs living there.” Contacting your local police department can help you find out what kind of registry is available in your city or county. For example, LA County also has the LA Found program, which provides free tracking bracelets for individuals with disabilities who might wander.
Movius says that families can consider visiting their fire or police station and meeting the officers in person. Not only can this help your child connect with first responders, recognize their uniform, and learn about their roles as helpers, but it gives first responders the opportunity to learn your child’s name and face so they can better serve them if there’s ever an emergency. “It’s not going to be feasible for all families,” Movius says, “but I always say to families, anything is better than nothing. You can bring a photo of your child. You can bring a description of your child. The National Autism Association has very good printable resources where you can fill these things out and bring them to a local police department.”
Connecting with your local department is also a great way to encourage them to pursue more training for officers working with individuals with “invisible” disabilities. Movius says, “The good news is first responders really want to know what to do and how to communicate with somebody with a disability. So whatever families can do to reach out is going to go a long way toward educating everybody.”
✅Parent tip: if your child uses a trach or ventilator at home, talk to your fire department and find out whether they can support your child in the event that you can’t go to an emergency room during a disaster or power outage.
Your state, county, or city might have a department specifically assigned to provide information about emergency preparedness to individuals with disabilities. In California, for example, each Regional Center has a page that provides advice on emergency preparedness, so find it on your Regional Center’s website or ask your service coordinator about available resources.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by all the things you need to do as a parent to prepare your family. Taylor has this advice: “I think you just tackle it a piece at a time. You don’t have to have a perfect plan in place in the next ten minutes, but there’s things we can do to work on our plan every day, and we can start to develop a culture of preparedness. I like that old adage about when’s the best time to plant a tree? Twenty years ago. But when’s the second best time to plant a tree? Today. Let’s really focus on the fact that we can make meaningful progress on this, that we can be prepared and that we can be safe and secure and healthy, and that’s achievable, so push forward and we’ll get there.”
Make emergency prep easier with Undivided's step-by-step walkthrough:
If the unthinkable happens and you need to evacuate your home, you’ll have your evacuation plan and your emergency kit ready so that you don’t have to decide in a stressful moment what to bring and where to go. Follow your plan, but be alert for instructions from first responders or disaster organizations like FEMA if you need to change your plan.
Taylor says, “As soon as you get one of those alerts, listen to it. Don’t do that thing where people say, ‘Well, I’ve lived here for thirty years, and they always say to go, and I never do and it’s been okay.’ We live in a very different time right now, where not only are we dealing with more and more disasters, but the scope and scale and devastation associated with those disasters is increasing, and so we have to take what our local officials are telling us very seriously. If you get an alert that says go, then you gotta go.”
Brian Fies from the organization After the Fire USA says, “If you are in an evacuation zone, take it seriously. Do what you’re told. If you can, leave early to avoid the rush.” He recommends that if you have any time to pack, focus on sentimental items such as family photos and keepsakes that would be irreplaceable if your home were destroyed. Coker-Lentz shares that you should assume you’re not coming back if you have to leave; after she evacuated, she wishes she would have packed her hard drive with family photos on it. At the very least, she says, “Plan to be gone longer than you expect to be.”
If you have time before you need to leave your home, it’s a good idea to unplug all electrical devices except for refrigerators. You might want to also shut off electricity, gas, and water as time allows.
If the place you planned to shelter at (such as a friend’s home) is no longer an option, know where your closest emergency shelter is. FEMA and city emergency websites should keep a running list of which shelters are available. The Genasys Protect website also lets you search for a nearby shelter based on your address. If you have pets or a service animal with you, pay special attention to which shelters will accept families with animals.
Taylor says, “Part of what you should look at is making sure that wherever you go, they’re going to be able to meet the needs of everybody in your family.” The resources available will depend on your state, but here’s what Taylor says about shelters in California:
Coker-Lentz shares that when her family evacuated, she was lucky to find a hotel in the middle of the night; because of her children’s sensory needs, it would have been almost impossible to be in an emergency shelter.
Taylor says, “We recognize that there are going to be some instances where a shelter is not going to be the best environment. When that happens, we work with partners like the Red Cross, for example, and we can provide, on a case-by-case basis, non-congregate sheltering options. So usually that’s a hotel or motel so that families can stay together in private, safe, and secure settings. If that’s what’s going to work best for them, then that’s what we try to achieve. But don’t be shy about letting us know what your needs are, and please be prepared to work with and partner with us so that we can get everything that you’re going to require in order to be independent and safe.”
While in temporary housing, Coker-Lentz and her family were able to get free meals from the World Central Kitchen, the American Red Cross, and organizations like local churches. The Watch Duty app and her Facebook groups provided information about where to go to receive aid.
After the Los Angeles fires, Coker-Lentz says that someone from her California Regional Center reached out within two days to confirm that her family had temporary housing. Her service coordinator reached out within two weeks to deliver toiletries and shopping gift cards to her two children who are Regional Center clients. They also gave her a list of other items the Regional Center could provide. If your child receives services from your state’s disability agency or another organization, the agency should work with you to create a plan to provide emergency aid.
Taylor says that especially for individuals with disabilities who need extra support evacuating and staying safe in a disaster, emergency preparedness and response is a partnership. “It is a whole community effort. It takes all of us — government, community-based organizations, and individuals — to work in coordination, to move the needle in a meaningful way that not only reduces human suffering but eliminates the preventable loss of life. It’s really just trying to work with people and support people and help them understand that this is achievable.”
For information on how to help parents and children cope with disasters, see this tip sheet from the CDC.
If you are living in temporary housing, you might wonder how the emergency will impact public benefits that your child receives — the office in charge of managing your child’s services is typically assigned by your home address, so what happens if you’re now living in a new zip code or city? The best way to get an immediate answer is to contact your child’s case manager, but in general, your services should be able to continue with the same providers until your family is in a permanent living situation again.
For example, if you’re a California resident and your child is a Regional Center client, you will be able to receive services from your same Regional Center while in temporary housing, and you can request extra services to manage the transition period. Coker-Lentz says that she asked for more respite hours because she needed extra time away from caring for her children to manage logistics like securing replacement clothing and new housing, and her Regional Center granted extra hours almost immediately. Her respite provider was able to come quickly and be an extra pair of hands. In addition, her young adult Regional Center clients qualified for more independent living services because they were in a new space. She also requested more transportation hours because their family had to travel more miles to see the same providers.
If your child receives in-home care, such as through IHSS in California, care might be temporarily interrupted if you need to switch providers because you and/or your provider has had to evacuate. However, if you are your child’s parent provider, you can continue providing services while living in a hotel or other temporary housing.
If your new permanent housing is in a new county, then you will need to switch services to your new county.
Find more information in California Emergency Preparedness Resources for Families of Kids with Disabilities.
We know that the uncertainty of dealing with natural disasters and other emergencies can create a lot of stress for parents and children alike, so if there’s another way Undivided can help you make sure your family has the resources you need, please reach out!
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