Kentucky plans to give weather alert radios to its hard-of-hearing residents at no cost to them in what the state’s governor said Thursday was a critical step to ensure that all residents get immediate access to potentially lifesaving emergency information ahead of severe storms.
The initiative, which will begin with the initial distribution of 700 specialized radios equipped with pillow shaker and strobe light attachments, was announced by Gov. Andy Beshear as the state braced for the remnants of Hurricane Helene on Friday evening.
People who are deaf or hard of hearing are especially vulnerable to missing emergency alerts when they are asleep, officials said.
“Regardless of how vigilant deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals are in monitoring weather alerts, their vulnerability increases the moment they fall asleep because they are unable to hear alarms, sirens and other critical auditory warnings,” Anita Dowd, the executive director of the state’s Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, said in a news release.
The radios also feature light-up text displays showing what type of weather alert is being issued. They receive transmissions from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s radio network, which broadcasts forecasts, warnings and other alerts 24 hours a day.
Governor Beshear, a Democrat, named the initiative “Moore Safe Nights,” after a late state official, Virginia Moore, who served as the sign language interpreter during the governor’s daily coronavirus news conferences and other state crises.
Ms. Moore, who died last year, became something of a celebrity in the state, where roughly 700,000 people are deaf or hard of hearing.
Her unfiltered expressions as she appeared beside Gov. Beshear while he relayed unnerving news of people attending a “coronavirus party” in the early days of quarantine resonated with viewers and won her a spot in a segment on John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” show.
The free weather alert radio program coincided with the arrival of Helene, but officials said at the news conference that the program had long been in the works and that the timing was coincidental.
“It wasn’t necessarily planned to be revealed on the day we were going to start talking about a hurricane, but as it worked out, it did,” said Eric Gibson, the state’s emergency management director. He said the state would try to distribute the radios ahead of Helene.
A website was set up for eligible Kentuckians to request a radio. It was unclear how much the program cost the state, but officials said it was paid for by an emergency preparedness grant and a federal fund.
Officials said the state would seek more money to replenish the first round of radios when they run out.
It was unclear how many of the radios had been distributed by Friday evening when strong winds and record rainfall spawned by Helene, now a tropical depression, swept the state.
Helene, which made landfall in northwest Florida as a Category 4 hurricane on Thursday night, had claimed more than 40 lives in multiple states as of Friday evening and devastated large areas of the Southeast.
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