Mobile resident Jeff Ridgeway said he viewed with horror the images of elderly and disabled people who had not been able to evacuate New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina and either died in the storm or survived only after harrowing rescues. 

Ridgeway, who can't operate a car after a stroke left him with severe nerve damage on the right side of his body, wondered what would happen to him in a similar disaster. 

The Mobile County Emergency Management Agency is trying to make sure that Ridgeway and others like him will be taken care of at a time like that. 

Emergency officials and local volunteer agencies have teamed up to create a special-needs registry – one of the first in the nation – to make sure elderly and disabled people can get to safety when a hurricane hits. 

The list so far includes the names, addresses and medical needs of more than 10,000 people in Mobile County. 

When a storm is threatening to strike this area, officials said, they will contact everyone on the list and make sure they can get out, either by their own means or with assistance from the government or volunteer agencies. 

When Ridgeway heard about the registry, he said, he made sure he was included. 

"With all the chaotic mess that Katrina left behind, I didn't want to find myself in the same situation," he said. "The registry gives me an opportunity to at least find a way out." 

People with special needs should not let the registry be their only option for dealing with a hurricane, Mobile County EMA Director Walt Dickerson said. They should talk with family and friends to come up with their own plans for evacuation or shelter and let the registry be a safety net in case those plans fall through, he said. 

About four days before a storm is forecast to hit Mobile, Dickerson said, officials and volunteers will call down the list and make sure everyone has a plan for evacuation. 

If a person does not, the county or the local volunteer agencies will offer to pick that person up and take him or her to a special-needs shelter or a hurricane shelter elsewhere in the state, Dickerson said. 

The county last year implemented a plan to use school buses to take residents from Mobile County to shelters at community colleges throughout the state during hurricanes. 

Hurricane season begins June 1.

Rene Cook, the shelter director for the Baldwin County EMA, said that agency is not putting together a similar registry but will transport residents to shelters if the residents call for help. 

The Abraham's Group, a consulting firm that tries to improve government initiatives, has compiled the names, addresses, needs and other information of the special-needs people in Mobile County, focusing on the areas south of Interstate 10 and east of Interstate 65 and U.S. 43, Dickerson said. The project cost about $25,000, Dickerson said. 

Naomi Moye, a consultant for the Abraham's Group, said Mobile County's EMA is one of the first emergency agencies in the nation to create a special-needs registry. Her organization is hoping to use Mobile as a model community to get other areas to do the same thing. 

Moye has been working with churches and organizations, such as the Independent Living Center, the Area Agency on Aging and the Mobile Association for the Blind to identify people who ought to be on the list. 

Only those who want to be on the list are being included, said Michael Davis of the Independent Living Center. 

Dickerson said he hopes that by June people will be able to sign up for the registry through the EMA's Web site. 

In 2006, the Department of Homeland Security released a post-Katrina review of emergency preparation in America and noted that "attention to populations with special needs" was an area that must be improved. 

"People with disabilities throughout the country will continue to risk suffering and death in disproportionate numbers unless states and urban areas dramatically improve their disability-related emergency planning process and readiness," the report reads. 

"We're trying to learn from mistakes of the past, and at the same time, we're trying to be proactive," Davis said. "We're trying to get ahead of the game." 

Minnie Walker, a 57-year-old who is blind and lives in west Mobile, said the registry brings "a sense of relief" to people with disabilities. 

"As far as people who are disabled, they'll know they have a way to get out," she said. "They know they won't have to sit there, not knowing what to do or where to go."