Disaster Warnings For The Deaf And Hard Of Hearing

Accessibility of Disaster Warnings for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing In the event of natural disasters like hurricanes, the benefit of warning and preparedness measures cannot be underscored. Alert systems and pagers provide citizens crucial seconds to seek a safe location. Additionally, they can provide important updates on event related weather conditions, road conditions, and evacuation notices.Such information is also often dispersed through televised government proceedings and radio programming. While these measures have been demonstrated to save lives and prevent injuries, for the nearly forty million Americans who identify as Deaf and Hard of Hearing these warning systems pose a barrier to their access of crucial information (Ivey†¦show more content†¦The main sources of destruction for these storms are wind speeds in excess of 74 mph, storm surges, and floodwaters several feet deep (Havelock, 2016). For people in the path of these incredibly dangerous storms, the most crucial action to be taken is evacuation (Havelock, 2016). Unfortun ately, as was seen in the case of Hurricane Katrina it is quite common in response to the threat of a hurricane for those most at risk to not heed warnings and to stay in unnecessarily risky situations (Demuth et al., 2012, p.1133) When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005 there was a clear disconnect in how the needs of the deaf were being handled. There are several personal reports of the events that provide evidence for accessibility inadequacies. In a report by deaf social worker Barbara White, she describes how the community struggled for their needs to be understood (White, 2014 p.4). One of the biggest issues was the resistance of government officials to allow people with ASL and deaf studies training to be set down to relief areas because â€Å"they did not feel there was a ‘significant’ need† (White, 2014, p.1-2). After a continued push White was able to set out for the hard hit south but the delay had already meant that deaf people were being left to decipher media reports in an inaccessible modality. She goes on to describe how this had a continued impact in the evacuee shelters. Though the majority of evacuees used ASL there were