BACKGROUND
In 2007, NEMA had undertaken an Impact Assessment Ratio and Special Needs (SN) Survey. The purpose of this activity was to determine the level of resilience existent in our communities, and the varying needs of those challenged citizens among us.
Uniformed CERT Technicians with identification conducted house-to-house interviews seeking information on the physical conditions of homes in Tobago (well kept, poorly kept, wooden, concrete, etc.) engineering practices on the property (retaining walls, guttering, drainage etc.) and the status of any challenged persons in the community. These challenges ranged from senior citizens with arthritis, hearing impairment, partial or total blindness; to others with physical, mental or medical challenges.

As of June 2011, this registry (on the WebEOC and EM2000) was revisited in an attempt to update the information contained in the database. In August 2011, TEMA partnered with the Trinidad and Tobago Cadet Force and revisited the residences of those on the database in an effort to obtain the GPS co-ordinates of each one of the cases.

The information gathered during this exercise is to aid TEMA in ensuring that in times of emergency, all special needs persons will be accounted for, and safely evacuated if the need arises.

What is a Special Need?
A Special Need is considered one with a mental or physical disability requiring individualised physical accessibility or primary care requirements.

We are asking anyone with a Special Need or information of someone with a Special Need to contact the Tobago Emergency Management Agency at 660-7489.