Emergency communication, how?

Reba

Reba

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Suppose an emergency is happening in your local community. Maybe a hurricane, blizzard, wide-spread power outage, explosion, etc. If you are D/deaf/HOH, how do you get your information? Suppose the electricity is out for many hours, or even days, and all the emergency announcements are made on radio only; how do you get the info that you need quickly? How do you know if you need to evacuate, and where to go?

Have you had experience in such a situation, or do you have any suggestions?
 
All the reason to sign up for the free Emergency Email service in your area that lets you know of any emergency events in your area through your mobile communicators like talkabout, pager, sidekick, blackberry or whatever.

The starting page is http://www.emergencyemail.org/

Richard
 
Not everyone has a radio and most television stations show emergency broadcasts.
 
Nesmuth said:
All the reason to sign up for the free Emergency Email service in your area that lets you know of any emergency events in your area through your mobile communicators like talkabout, pager, sidekick, blackberry or whatever.

The starting page is http://www.emergencyemail.org/

Richard
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I have the Emergency Email service, for about a year now. It is good but not good enough. They sent me no warnings at all about tropical storm Gaston. They don't really cover the local emergencies.
 
VamPyroX said:
Not everyone has a radio and most television stations show emergency broadcasts.
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That is true. So what do you do when the electric power goes out? How do you get your emergency information? During yesterday's storm, the TV stations did NOT show captioned emergency broadcasts. There was NO electricity for TV. Then what?

During hurricane Hugo, all the local TV stations and most of the radio stations were destroyed. The only way we got information in SC was by listening to radio stations in FL.
 
I must apolopized about this site really sucks becuase whatever you are living in the area ,they will keep alert you about YOUR area no matter what.. where you are driving to other area and it has storm.. bingo!! no alert on you... it's need some more improvements..
 
I know theyre like 10-15 minutes slow but Emergency email is a stepping stone to something better in the future.

Rich
 
Reba said:
That is true. So what do you do when the electric power goes out? How do you get your emergency information? During yesterday's storm, the TV stations did NOT show captioned emergency broadcasts. There was NO electricity for TV. Then what?

During hurricane Hugo, all the local TV stations and most of the radio stations were destroyed. The only way we got information in SC was by listening to radio stations in FL.
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Actually, most emergency broadcasts do not say anything... but have a scrolling marquee of the actually message. Usually, if they're saying something... it's already being said in the scrolling message.
 
Reba said:
Suppose an emergency is happening in your local community. Maybe a hurricane, blizzard, wide-spread power outage, explosion, etc. If you are D/deaf/HOH, how do you get your information? Suppose the electricity is out for many hours, or even days, and all the emergency announcements are made on radio only; how do you get the info that you need quickly? How do you know if you need to evacuate, and where to go?

Have you had experience in such a situation, or do you have any suggestions?
Click to expand...

As most of you know, I'm hearing, so this doesn't affect me. But, it started me thinking about "what if"? WHAT IF I didn't have my hearing, and needed the kind of information Reba speaks about??? What could I do? Most would say watch your television since most TVs have closed captioned capabilities, but what would happen if the power was out in my area? How would I get the information needed???? Emergency Management?

:gpost: Reba!!! It made me think, and I like that! :thumb:
 
There's a company that makes wind-up radios, but of course that's of minimal help if you're deaf...and actually of not a whole lot of help if you're hearing, either, because the wind-up generator doesn't have all that long a life. I know, having bought a couple of them. :(

I looked to see whether they made a wind-up TV, but no luck--of course, the CRT eats enough juice that it wouldn't be feasible, so it was dumb to look. There are battery-run TVs...though from what I read, a TV with a screen smaller than 13" doesn't have to provide for captioning, so you'd have to settle for whatever messages the stations have scrolling on the screen that everybody sees, and that's not a lot.

Sigh. Too bad there's not some subcarrier facility for radio to carry captioning that could go on an LCD display. (Time to go look at whether the new digital radio standards provide for captioning...)
 
jejones3141 said:
There's a company that makes wind-up radios, but of course that's of minimal help if you're deaf...and actually of not a whole lot of help if you're hearing, either, because the wind-up generator doesn't have all that long a life. I know, having bought a couple of them. :(

I looked to see whether they made a wind-up TV, but no luck--of course, the CRT eats enough juice that it wouldn't be feasible, so it was dumb to look. There are battery-run TVs...though from what I read, a TV with a screen smaller than 13" doesn't have to provide for captioning, so you'd have to settle for whatever messages the stations have scrolling on the screen that everybody sees, and that's not a lot.

Sigh. Too bad there's not some subcarrier facility for radio to carry captioning that could go on an LCD display. (Time to go look at whether the new digital radio standards provide for captioning...)
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We have a battery-operated TV that we used during last week's storm. For hearing people it is fine. For Deaf it is not fine--no captions. The local news/weather did not show many scrolled messages.

When the storms are very bad, the TV and radio stations go off the air. Sometimes their studios and satellite dishes/antennas are destroyed. Cable gone too.
 
This morning I am glad to see that Florida Governor Jeb Bush is using an interpreter on screen when he makes his emergency hurricane announcements.
 
I have seen Governor Jeb Bush having interpreters present on TV yesterday and several times in the past. :) It shows that the Bush brothers think of the deaf community and that they aren’t out there to cripple the ADA system like some people say so. :)

Have you considered bringing up the issues with your lobbyists or perhaps Governor Beasley's office?
 
Yes, but it is Gov. Sandford now; it used to be Beasley, then Hodges. ;)
 
We're about to have a meeting on sept 17th with the civil defense poeple in takling about the hurricane prepration as we also are in the hurricane season. we we're going to work with the poeple there to make every possible chances to make the deaf community safe as well from tusami, to hurricane and whatnots. so thats important for us! :)
 
Reba said:
Yes, but it is Gov. Sandford now; it used to be Beasley, then Hodges. ;)
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Thanks, Reba. I didn’t realize Beasley was out of the office for some years now. I just checked info on Governor Sandford at SC.gov. It is good to see another Republican in the state's top office. :)
 
Reba said:
This morning I am glad to see that Florida Governor Jeb Bush is using an interpreter on screen when he makes his emergency hurricane announcements.
Click to expand...

I know Jeb to be deaf friendly and I know who tamed him for us.

Richard
 
CoolieFroggie said:
I must apolopized about this site really sucks becuase whatever you are living in the area ,they will keep alert you about YOUR area no matter what.. where you are driving to other area and it has storm.. bingo!! no alert on you... it's need some more improvements..
Click to expand...

The solution is to sign up for other regions around your area.

I'm on the Orange County. LA County, San Diego, Kern, Lake, Riverside, San Bernardino,Ventura, Santa Barbara alert lists.

Richard
 
Thats a great idea!

Thats really important to get emgerancy commuication.
By signing up for a wireless service like Blackberry, or a Side-Kick it can alert you if theres hurricane, blizzards, earthquakes ect.
And it keeps deaf, Hoh, and hearing people in touch, also It can save lives.
Margie
 
I have signed up with my local ABC news station for warnings sent to my Blackberry. I just had to go to their website, find "e-warn" then choose if I want it sent to pager/wireless device, cell phone, or email. It is nice to have!

I am sure other stations like NBC or Fox might have e-warn too. I personally prefer ABC though.
 
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