Puerto Rico Earthquakes 2019 - 2020
Special needs covers quite a diverse spectrum of conditions. For those with mobility challenges special needs includes prosthetic limbs, canes, crutches, walkers, scooters and various kinds of wheelchairs. That means that if the person is to be evacuated arrangements have to be in place to bring the device or devices. For people using powered devices any responders doing a wellness check would need to consider how to keep the device running. This also means that if a church or school, for example, is serving as a post-disaster distribution hub some thought has to be given to not only getting the special needs person to the hub, but providing power to the device.

For people with respiratory challenges such as emphysema oxygen re-supply is critical.

For people undergoing periodic treatment such as dialysis the priority becomes getting the person to an establishment that can provide such services.

There is a bewildering collection of food sensitivities and allergies: among the more common dietary limits are animal products (fish, meat and eggs), lactose (dairy), additives (often synthetic colors, but many other items), sugars (often fructose, especially from fruits, but quite a number of variants), tree nuts, gluten (grains) and so on.
 
Then there are requirements for medications - a popular example would be diabetics who need insulin.

We suppose some thought should be given to what could be done for people addicted to tobacco, narcotics or alcohol.

Maintaining even a highly secure and confidential database to support such special needs is a situation just ripe for abuse. People with special needs did not cause the earthquake - they ought not to die afterwards due to poor planning.

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 Recommendations - People with special needs