American Sign Language and 13 additional languages part of order to expand cellphone emergency alerts
Real-time emergency and weather alert system go directly to cellphones. Credit: governor.ny.gov
In a move that city and state officials hope will save lives, the Federal Communications Commission this week published a long-delayed order mandating the expansion of cellphone emergency alerts to include American Sign Language and 13 additional languages.
Wireless Emergency Alerts — a national public warning system commonly used by state and local authorities to deliver important information about severe weather, natural disasters or missing persons through short text messages — are currently delivered only in English and Spanish.
In a notice published Tuesday in the Federal Register, the FCC said wireless providers such as AT&T and Verizon must install multilingual WEA templates for the most commonly utilized languages in the United States and have them ready for use by June 12, 2028.
Alerts would be available in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese, along with ASL, officials said.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
- The Federal Communications Commission this week published a long-delayed order mandating the expansion of cellphone emergency alerts to include American Sign Language and 13 additional languages.
- Wireless Emergency Alerts — a national public warning system commonly used by state and local authorities to deliver important information about severe weather, natural disasters, or missing persons through short text messages — are currently delivered only in English and Spanish.
- Wireless providers must install multilingual WEA templates for the most commonly utilized languages in the U.S. and have them ready for use by June 12, 2028. Alerts would be available in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese, along with ASL, officials said.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who has advocated for the multilingual emergency alerts for several years, including in a letter to the FCC's head in 2022 and a multistate demand letter to the agency last November, said the expansion will benefit an estimated 1.3 million New Yorkers who are not proficient in English or Spanish.
"This is a profound victory for the millions of New Yorkers and families across the country who will no longer be left without guidance during emergencies and natural disasters," James said in a statement. "No one’s ability to protect themselves and their loved ones should depend on the language they speak. ... This language expansion will save lives."
The FCC did not respond to requests for comment and it’s unclear why the agency, which first approved changes to WEA in 2023, had delayed updating the system.
In August, when the agency voted again to make structural changes to the 13-year-old WEA system, FCC Chair Brendan Carr said the expansion was overdue.
"Just because something has been done a certain way for a certain number of years, we should not hesitate to change things up, whether in big or small ways," Carr said at the time. "That is certainly the approach we are taking with this."
Taina Wagnac, director of state and local policy at the Manhattan-based New York Immigration Coalition, described the change as a civil rights issue for non-English speaking residents.
"This is a public safety issue, not a convenience issue," Wagnac said. "Emergency alerts are meant to save lives. So when alerts are only issued in English, then we have millions of people who are effectively excluded from timely, life-saving information."
State officials point to Hurricane Ida, which ravaged New York City in 2021, as an example of why multilingual wireless emergency alerts are needed.
Flash flooding from the storm caused 18 deaths statewide, predominantly in Asian communities whose residents have limited proficiency in English or Spanish.
Nonetheless, the National Weather Service issued several alerts to WEA-enabled cellphones in the area warning of a flash flood emergency, but only in English and Spanish.
The National Weather Service said at the time that it supports distributing WEAs in languages beyond English and Spanish but that the change would require new rules from the FCC.
"When Hurricane Ida struck New York City in September 2021, almost all the people who lost their lives in basement floods were Asian immigrants," said Catherine Chen, chief executive of the Manhattan-based Asian American Federation. "Emergency warnings in their languages could have been the difference between life or death. Today, 43% of Asian New Yorkers are limited English proficient, so the Federal Communications Commission's long-overdue expansion of Wireless Emergency Alerts into 13 non-English languages will help hundreds of thousands of our community members access life-saving information during natural disasters and other emergencies."
Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.
Full coverage of the winter storm from NewsdayTV The NewsdayTV team was across Long Island monitoring the winter weather and what's next.
Full coverage of the winter storm from NewsdayTV The NewsdayTV team was across Long Island monitoring the winter weather and what's next.
