- What do During a Power Outage
- Know the Difference Between Evacuation Warnings and Orders
- How to Stay Safe on the Road
Emergency Alerts! It is important to sign up for alerts in your county so that you’ll be informed when local emergency situations arise. Also, be sure your contact information is current with your assigned regional center so that they can connect with you easily during an emergency.
The Department’s Emergency Preparedness and Response team has prepared the document below with information and links to incident updates, resources, and support:
Get additional information on updates from the Department on Facebook, Instagram and X (Twitter).
State
- CA.gov/LAfires The go-to website for Californians impacted by the Los Angeles wildfires. Provides information on ways to sign up for FEMA and SBA assistance, help seeking unemployment assistance, filing insurance claims, and other wildfire related resources.
- listos.ca.gov California’s disaster preparedness hub.
- CalOES Shelter Information Emergency shelter listing.
- CalOES Public Service Announcement (January 13, 2025) Southern California Wildfire-Themed Scams
- fire.ca.gov Wildfire information and updates from CAL FIRE.
- CalHHS Emergency Resource Guide
- Guide to Disaster Assistance Services for Immigrant Californians | Spanish
Federal
- FEMA Disaster Recovery Centers (DRCs) are available daily to the public from 9 AM to 8 PM at the following locations:
540 West Woodbury Road
Altadena, CA 91001
UCLA Research Park
10850 West Pico Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90064
- News Release (January 15, 2025) FEMA Transitional Sheltering Assistance Available for Los Angeles County Residents | Spanish
- Individual Assistance (IA) Overview for People in Non-Traditional Dwellings
County/Local
How You Can Help
We can all support our southern California communities by:
- Regional centers donations for individuals and families receiving services:
- Donate items from the Amazon Wishlist for impacted I/DD families; managed by the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities and The Colin Farrell Foundation.
- Sharing recovery and response resource information
- Avoiding travel to impacted areas
- Volunteer opportunities with California Volunteers
- Additional ways to donate with Philanthropy California
Emergency Preparedness planning is essential to minimizing the impacts of disasters on communities and individuals. The office of emergency preparedness works closely and collaboratively with regional center emergency coordinators and other stakeholders in all planning efforts to identify emergency preparedness gaps and needs to individuals served as well as work to develop solutions to close those gaps and increase individual preparedness efforts.
The Department of Developmental Services plays an active role in responding and takes a proactive approach to ensuring the health and safety of the DDS’ service system by facilitating emergency response activities and improving emergency response readiness. DDS has identified the need to develop emergency preparedness material, providing necessary training and education, securing emergency go kits and portable batteries for consumers living independently or with limited supports dependent on power for life-sustaining equipment and who live within high fire threat district areas.
- Emergency Go-Kits
- The Department has contracted with Supply Bank who will purchase go-kit items, assemble the go-kits and deliver go-kits to regional centers who will provide to individuals eligible to receive a go-kit. If you have questions on eligibility and training requirements, please contact your regional center emergency coordinator: add link to pdf in the “contact information box”.
- Go-Kit training slides are now available in multiple languages:
- Portable Batteries
- The Department has contracted with California Foundation of Independent Living Centers (CFILC) and the Disability Disaster Access and Resources (DDAR) program to provide individuals with portable batteries to those requiring power for life-sustaining equipment. To learn more about DDAR please click here.
- Emergency Preparedness Materials
- The Department has contracted with American Red Cross to develop emergency preparedness training materials preparing individuals for wildfire evacuation.
- Completion of the training, training materials, resources, and tools to ensure adult residential facilities and Residential Facilities are prepared for emergency response can be founds here:
Workbook and Materials
The Feeling Safe, Being Safe workbook will help you make a plan that you can use in case of an emergency. The videos demonstrate how to complete the workbook and put together a home emergency kit. The printable magnet lets you post your important emergency contact information on your refrigerator for first responders.
Instructions
Click on any of the grey boxes below for more information about each title. When you’re done reading or watching what is in the box, you can click on the title again. This will close the box back up. Click on the title to open the box again.
Instructional Videos:
Instructional Video for FSBS Packet
Introduction & Materials
Being Prepared
The Emergency Worksheet
The Magnet
The Emergency Kit
Community Supports
- Emergency Kit Supply List
- Background
- This 22-page booklet describes why and how the DDS Consumer Advisory Committee, worked for 18 months to develop Feeling Safe, Being Safe – emergency preparedness tools for a wide range of people and field-tested the tools to make sure that the materials could work for everyone.
- Frequently Asked Questions about trainings on the emergency preparedness materials
- The Department contracted and facilitated a collaborative workgroup to develop communication cards for the deaf + community to be utilize during emergency response. The goal of these communication cards is to assist with 2-way communications with shelter staff and first responders. Digital copies of these communication cards can be found here:
These guides are available in English, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog and Armenian.
Preparing for a Disaster
Video is also available in the following languages
- Preparing for a Disaster (ASL)
- Preparing for a Disaster (Descriptive Audio)
- Preparing for a Disaster (Spanish)
- Preparing for a Disaster (Vietnamese)
- Preparing for a Disaster (Chinese)
- Preparing for a Disaster (Korean)
- Preparing for a Disaster (Russian)
- Preparing for a Disaster (Hmong)
- Preparing for a Disaster (Khmer)
- Preparing for a Disaster (Armenian)
- Preparing for a Disaster (Arabic)
- Preparing for a Disaster (Farsi)
Southern California Edison (SCE) Resources
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) Resources
- PG&E Medical Baseline Program Flyer
- PG&E Medical Baseline Program Tabletop
- PG&E Outage Center – Ways We Can Help
San Diego Gas & Electric Resources
This Story book is designed for children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities who were affected by the wildfires in California. However, it can be helpful to anyone. It uses strategies drawn from evidence-based interventions for trauma care. It is written in plain language to give words to what happened and what people are experiencing, with the hope to help people feel safe and begin to heal.
The first version of this story book was developed for people who were impacted by the 2023 wildfires in Maui, Hawai’i. This California story book edition was dedicated to the California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) and the families they serve, from our neighbors in Hawai’i. Our Hawai’i partners stand in support and healing, and hope this resource brings comfort and strength as you navigate recovery.
DDS would like to personally thank our partners at the Center on Disability Studies, College of Education, University of Hawai’i at Manoa; specifically Maya Matheis, PhD for making this dedication and sharing this valuable recovery resource.
Last modified: April 16, 2025
