Agreement reached to make NY emergency alerts accessible for blind people

Blind people will soon have access to potentially lifesaving information about emergencies like pending storms and hazards on NY-Alert, the New York state mass notification system, due to an agreement reached between advocates and state officials.

The agreement, announced Wednesday, resolves a 2020 lawsuit filed on behalf of an individual plaintiff and the American Council of the Blind of New York Inc. against the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, its commissioner, Patrick A. Murphy, and then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

Under the terms of the agreement, the Office of Information Technology Services will "bring critical information" into compliance with web accessibility standards within six months, so individuals who use screen readers can access that information and receive emergency notifications. These include alerts about hurricanes, flood conditions, fires and winter storms, officials from the Disability Rights Advocates, which provided legal representation in the suit, said in a statement.

Administration officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In addition to making the existing NY-Alert website accessible for the visually impaired, the ITS office will, over the course of the next two years, conduct what Disability Rights Advocates described as "monthly accessibility testing," including "manual user testing" by a "specialized third-party contractor" and will provide training for employees and contractors who develop or post content to the NY-Alert website.

"Recent storms and tragic flash flooding across New York have only underscored the importance of effective public emergency warnings that can reach everyone," a staff attorney at Disability Rights Advocates, Chloe Holzman, said in a statement Wednesday. "We are pleased that ITS will be fixing NY-Alert’s accessibility barriers, so people who rely on screen readers are no longer excluded from urgent notifications designed to save lives."

In a statement, the plaintiff who helped bring the lawsuit, Ann Chiappetta of New Rochelle, said: "Before this lawsuit, the NY-Alert website was unnavigable for me. I was forced to rely on others to register and sign up for alerts, and I could not manage my own contact preferences on the site. I look forward to accessing what I need on the site soon, so I can choose the way I want to receive alerts and anyone else using a screen reader can, too."

With Robert Brodsky

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”