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A report from a North Carolina public radio station examines the barriers residents of Buncombe County faced during Hurricane Helene and its recovery. Residents who are dead or hard-of-hearing described losing access to emergency information when power outages drained cochlear implant batteries and disabled televisions. This left them unable to follow radio or broadcast updates. One resident who is deaf and uses cochlear implants said she struggled to make sense of events after her batteries died with no power to recharge them.
The report also notes that American Sign Language interpreters were not present at county storm briefings until more than a week after the disaster, which county officials attributed in part to a shortage of interpreters and the logistics of scheduling them. County officials acknowledged the storm brought new challenges, and a local advocate who is also deaf is now working to help the county better prepare to serve the tens of thousands of residents with some level of hearing loss in the surrounding area.
The story points to broader questions about accessible emergency communication, including backup power for hearing devices, redundant alert formats that do not rely on audio, and timely interpreter and captioning access during disasters. These issues connect to ongoing federal work on accessible emergency alerts.
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