Emergency Shelter Information

What to Know about Mass Care Shelters

• Mass care shelters are temporary public living quarters that provide physical shelter and essential services for evacuees and disaster survivors.  Mass care shelters can have many people living in a confined space, which can be difficult and unpleasant.  There is no privacy in a mass care shelter.  Space may be limited and cots are not guaranteed.  Basic food and water will be available, but emergency shelters cannot accommodate special dietary needs.  Weapons, alcohol, smoking, and vaping are not allowed on the public shelter property.  The first choice during an evacuation should be to go and take shelter with a friend or loved-one in their home outside of the evacuation area, and remain there until it is safe to return.  

• Special Needs Shelters are intended to provide, to the extent possible under emergency conditions, an environment that can sustain a medically vulnerable individual's level of health.  Special Needs Shelter staff can only offer basic medical support and monitoring.  Back-up electricity will be available for life-sustaining medical equipment.  Complex medical care is not available in any public shelter.​   

• Evacuees are expected to take their own supplies to emergency shelters, including medications, mobility equipment, blankets, pillows, changes of clothes, preferred food/snacks, and personal hygiene items.  Consider taking a book to pass the time.  Take everything you might need if you were going camping for a week, except the tent and cook-stove; if you don't take it with you, you won't have it.

• Nassau's emergency mass care shelters are "pet-friendly," but each pet will need proof of a current Rabies Vaccination, its own food, bowls, and a secure crate.  Cats will also need their own litter boxes.  Realize that pets will have to be housed in crates/cages in a room separate from the humans living in the shelter, and pet owners will be responsible for their daily care and feeding.  Reptiles cannot be accommodated in Nassau's public shelters.​