“Register Ready – New Jersey’s Special Needs Registry for Disasters” allows New Jersey residents with disabilities or access and functional needs and their families, friends, caregivers and associates an opportunity to provide information to emergency response agencies so emergency responders can better plan to serve them in a disaster or other emergency. One can register at http://www.registerready.nj.gov/ website or if you do not have a computer or you can dial 211 (toll-free) and an operator will assist you in registering. The information collected is confidential and will not be available to the public. The information will be held securely and only used for emergency response and planning. How we use the Register Ready database is when a hurricane is approaching our area with a chance of evacuations the Fire Department will contact those on the Register Ready list to see if they have made arrangements to evacuate prior to the storm and what are their current needs.  This helps in planning what resources are needed for the upcoming storm.

An Important note that is posted on the Register Ready website is that “The first line of defense against the effects of a disaster is personal preparedness. During an emergency, the government and other agencies may not be able to meet your needs. It is important for all citizens to make their own emergency plans and prepare for their own care and safety in an emergency. Registering on this website is not a guarantee that emergency officials will be able to assist you in an emergency.” We cannot stress enough how important it is that you have your own emergency plan which includes places to go if evacuation is necessary and quantities of food, water, medications if you have to shelter in place. The facts are that in our community of around 4,000 year round residents and well over 50,000 visitors during the height of the summer the contingency of less than 60 first responders (when you take in consideration the number of employees in time off and those volunteers not available) can not evacuate everyone and provide emergency responses to all calls for service.

We encourage you if you meet the criteria for adding your information to NJ Register Ready, to do so, as part of your preparedness plan. With that said we ask that when you register on the NJ Register Ready website you create an account so that you can go back and update the information accordingly. When we check the information before storms we often find that several of those registered have moved, passed away or have entered incomplete information.