Captioned Emergency Broadcasts

December 2004

Editor: We've reported on efforts to improve emergency captioning following the San Diego wildfires and the Washington DC sniper attacks. Now we learn that people are working to improve emergency captioning in hurricane-prone Florida. It's great to see so much successful local advocacy on this important issue.

This story is reprinted with permission.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the newsroom of the Olathe News, Olathe, Kansas, Thursday, December 2, 2004

by Leonard Hall

When Hurricane Charley hit Florida several months ago, emergency broadcasts and news went out through the local television stations warning the hearing viewers about the changing direction of the hurricane. Many hearing people left their homes for nearby shelters.

Unfortunately, most of these local emergency broadcasts were not captioned and many deaf people were not aware of the change in the course of Hurricane Charley when it hit Punta Gorda, Florida, south of Fort Meyers, Florida.

Some deaf people were unaware of the approaching hurricane and did not leave their homes to go to a designated shelter. Some deaf people fled their homes in the midst of the most dangerous part of the hurricane when their homes were being ripped apart by the winds.

One advocate said that deaf people were seeing the picture of Charley coming up to Charlotte Harbor and getting in their cars to flee the hurricane. The deaf people had no clue how fast the hurricane was moving and were not receiving information about what was being broadcast on the local television news.

Many of these deaf people are late-deafened senior citizens who relied a lot on closed captioning to understand what was being said on the television shows. Approximately 30% of all senior citizens have a moderate to severe hearing loss.

Most national networks and cable television programs have closed captioning, but many locally produced shows do not.

In Florida, a deaf man and two non-profit agencies serving the deaf community have filed formal complaints with the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) against the local television station in the Fort Meyers, Florida area.

The problem is that the reporters in the field and weather reporters don't have scripts. They usually provide their own broadcast. There was no way to provide the scripted captioning that most local television stations use.

The solution demanded by many in the area deaf community is real- time closed captioning. This is a service where someone somewhere sits and listens to the station's newscast. They type in everything that is said and the script appears verbatim on the television screen.

What about our local television stations in the Kansas City area? The most common weather emergency broadcasts involve severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings. The stations do a good job of putting those little corner weather maps showing the counties under weather warnings.

However, many deaf people have missed the winter weather forecast for heavy snow and ice warning, since these are usually verbally provided on the weather portion of the television news.

Under FCC rules, stations must make the emergency weather information being said on television available to the deaf and hard of hearing people during emergencies. By 2006, all television stations in the top 100 markets will need to offer real-time captioning.

By 2006, the deaf community will be in better shape to understand the emergency weather broadcasts.

(Leonard writes a weekly column for the deaf community and can be reached at Legalnetwk@aol.com.)

Copyright 2004 Olathe News