Photo of a person in a wheelchair with a laptop and folder in a living room. The person is in color and the background is black and white.

Emergency Preparedness and Resiliency Program

Program Overview:

The Center for Independent Living’s Emergency Preparedness Program supports individual and community resilience and readiness planning to prepare for disaster recovery and Public Safety Power Shutoff events, and ensures people with disabilities and older adults are integrated in state- and county-wide planning, response, and recovery processes for disasters. Our peer-led program offers emergency readiness, response, and recovery by people with disabilities, for people with disabilities, and our services focus on areas often left out of traditional emergency management, like accessibility, assistive technology and mobility devices, crip hacks during disasters, and other critical community resources for disabled people and older adults.

What is a disaster?

A disaster is a condition that presents a particular risk to normal operations, or to the health and safety of communities, such as a wildfire, earthquake, heatwave, or severe weather such as rain, lightning or flooding, or power shut offs. Disasters can be a natural part of ecosystems, but we have experienced growing and deepening disasters fueled by the current climate crisis.

What does CIL assist with?

The Center for Independent Living, Inc. (CIL) is part of the Disability Disaster Access and Resources Program through our affiliation with the California Foundation of Independent Living Centers (CFILC). CIL is also a Listos California (Listos meaning “ready”) Partner through the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (CalOES)

As a DDARC and a Listos partner, our Emergency Preparedness program offers a range of services, including:

Individualized emergency preparedness planning
Starter emergency kits and information about building go-bags, stay-bags, and more
Enrollment in critical programs such as PG&E’s Medical Baseline Program and AC Alert
Portable batteries for individuals who require power for life-saving medical equipment during power shutoffs, and who also live in high wildfire risk areas or areas affected by Public Safety Power Shut-offs.
Disability-led community disaster preparedness and response education and training
A Peer Ambassador Program where disabled community members are resourced and compensated to bring emergency preparedness education to their communities.