Electric life support dependant registering with FEMA

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Many Y2K sites advise registering with FEMA if you are dependent on life support. Our emergency government coordinator was unaware of this "requirement". I tracked what appears to be an original reference at www.fema.gov/emi/cert/orland3.htm. Looking at the document, context, and the whole www address, it appears that it might be a Florida (or Hurricane belt) recommendation.

Has anyone found any source documents that would indicate otherwise? If not, then perhaps some misinformation has been published by quotes taken out of context.

(Besides, if it hits the fan, folks on electric life support could be in big trouble if they expect the feds to have time to take care of them - please understand that I'm not trying to be unkind, only to get the facts to help in preparation choices.)

Good luck jh

-- John Hebert (jhebert@co.waukesha.wi.us), October 23, 1998

Answers

Couldn't hurt to register with FEMA. Might get you some early gasoline for your backup generator if you were. But I would absolutely have at least one backup for power, and probably two - its your life we are talking about here. Hey I live in Memphis for crying out loud - already had two short power outages this year.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), October 23, 1998.

John:

In the piece you reference, they suggest registrering with your local Emergency Management agency. I assume this means city, county, etc. - not FEMA directly. I suppose such registration would depend on whether or not the local EM agency has any program to take action in the event of an emergency. I find it hard to believe that most communities actually have response teams to rush to your house if the power goes out. (For example, we have two ambulances in a town of 50,000, and that number doesn't include the near townships.) If such a program exists, it's probably a very good idea, since continuing life support requires supplies most of us would have a tough time getting. I have never heard of any 'requirement' in this respect. If someone was on a machine in their own home, I'd assume their doctor would make some suggestions to the family. Power outages and flooding occur under ordinary circumstances. Anyone out there have any experience with this?

-- Mike (gartner@execpc.com), October 24, 1998.


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