Emergency
Information at your Fingertips
Editor:
We're fortunate that both mainstream and hearing loss organizations are
providing tools to help keep us informed about emergencies in our area.
Here's Dana Mulvany with her thoughts on some of these products and
services.
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I recently
downloaded the free Weatherbug software program while installing a new
version of RealPlayer and was very pleasantly surprised to learn that it
will provide a visual (and chirping) alert to NOAA alerts and Department
of Homeland Security alerts on your desktop. Thus this will alert you
much faster to an emergency than emails you receive in your inbox but
might not read right away.
Another
nice benefit of this program is how easy it is to change your
"home" city and thus receive alerts from the above sources for
that city; when you travel to another location temporarily, you can thus
change your "home" city so that you receive alerts for the
city that you're in.
One of the
few drawbacks of the otherwise helpful and free Emergency Email Network
system (http://www.emergencye.com) is that you can now only sign up for
one location per email address, so it's not set up to be able to notify
travelers of emergencies in their immediate vicinity. With Weatherbug,
however, you can easily take charge of receiving alerts, and you'll have
some motivation to do so as the program continually tells you about the
outside temperature of your designated "home" city in the
toolbar.
I'd prefer
if Weatherbug's visual alert was larger; it only flashes the icon in the
toolbar. But I just decided to change my computer settings in the
"Accessibility Settings" in "Control Panel" so that
the entire desktop monitor will flash when there's a sound (I often mute
my computer to avoid disturbing my cat!).
This free
program is available from http://www.weatherbug.com/. There's also a
paid version.
(Disclaimer:
I have no financial interest in the company that makes Weatherbug. I
can't promise this won't crash your computer; I think I had trouble
installing it previously with Netscape Navigator, but I haven't had
problems with it this time around. Be sure to shut down other programs
when installing it.)
If you're
aware of other free software programs that provide an immediate alert to
NOAA and DHS alerts, please let us know!
Do sign up
to receive emails from the recently launched Community Emergency
Preparedness Information Network (CEPIN) Project, which is specifically
geared towards the needs of deaf and hard of hearing people. The web
site is at http://www.cepintdi.org/. The CEPIN staff just produced an
issue discussing emergency notifications and encouraging us to ask our
U.S. senators to support the Warning, Alert, and Response Network (WARN)
Act in the U.S. Senate. "That act proposes to "establish a
network for the transmission of alerts across a broad variety of
media." This includes cell phones, pagers, PDA, and computers - any
device that receives text messaging or other possible alerting systems
as well. The proposed legislation also states that the system shall
"include mechanisms and technologies to ensure that members of the
public with disabilities are able to receive alerts and information
provided by the System."
Feel free
to forward this email to other lists or individuals.
Dana
Mulvany dmulvany@usa.net
