County take steps to alert deaf and blind population

Cameron County officials didn't know they were missing out on communicating with a major part of the population during hurricane season. It's a population that the county heard about last year during the 2007 hurricane season.

It's the 10 percent population that can't hear, can't see or are hard of hearing.

"They had not been reached out to before. They now will be some of the first if not the first to know what our county's plans are when a tropical storm starts to develop," said Johnny Cavazos, the county's emergency management officer.

This year the county is working with an organization called Deaf Link that will help disseminate information when a tropical storm or hurricane threatens the area. Deaf Link will have representatives sign the warnings.

The county has reached an agreement with the local television stations that will air the signing during the storms.

"They have agreed to give up a small peace of real state on the screen to allow for a signer to be on there. This is a first for the state of Texas," Cavazos said.

A link to Deaf Link is also available on the county's Web site. There will also be a representative of the deaf community at the county's Emergency Management Center when it is activated during a hurricane.

Much of the deaf community didn't know Hurricane Katrina was threatening New Orleans in 2005 until the storm actual hit, he said. They woke up to the sound of water.

"What woke them up was the water in their beds because they never heard the sirens. They never heard the helicopters. They could not read the closed captions on the bottom of the (television) screens," Cavazos said, recalling his conversation with a woman who works with the deaf.

"It just hit me like a ton of bricks...this is a portion of the public that I want to make sure are getting the message," Cavazos said. "Most TV stations believe that closed captioning is enough, and it's not."