Sunday, March 30, 2008
News

Georgia Tech develops disaster warnings for the impaired

People with disabilities are the ones that, in emergencies, cannot get out.

Georgia Tech researcher Helena Mitchell (center), with colleague John Peifer (left) and Mike Jones (right) of the Shepherd Center.
CREDIT: Georgia Tech/ Stanley Leary
By Manashi Mukherjee

What if an emergency warning had been issued for your neighborhood, but you couldn’t hear that distinctive tone that precedes every tornado bulletin, or you couldn’t see the message that scrolls along the bottom of your television screen?

Helena Mitchell recalls seeing a sign during the Hurricane Katrina cleanup process that read, “Blind people, go to section B.” Her reaction? “How are they even going to know there was a sign there, much less what to do next?”

Mitchell, project director for Wireless Emergency Communications (WEC) and executive director of the Center for Advanced Communications Policy at Georgia Tech, points to the “yo-yo theory” of the first 48 hours of any disaster: “Yo-yo” is an acronym for “you’re on your own.”

“It can’t be overemphasized that the importance during emergencies, whether man-made or natural, is that no one is left behind,” Mitchell says. “People with disabilities are the ones that are left behind.”

Mitchell’s research team has developed a wireless emergency alert system designed to warn the visually and aurally impaired of dangerous weather conditions or disaster situations. The first series of tests, geared toward the visually impaired, took place last month, in collaboration with volunteer participants from the Georgia Radio Reading Service, and 94 percent of the participants found the service to be “a significant improvement” over alert systems already in place. The project is one of many developed by Georgia Techs’ Wireless Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center to serve disabled and impaired communities.

The software is designed to send Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Emergency Alert System (EAS) warnings via mobile phone to disabled persons, so they don’t have to rely on the usual methods of television and radio. The system also works in conjunction with alerts from the National Weather Service.

“We want to be able to use wireless technologies to reach people who might be visually impaired, hearing impaired, and [others with] a wide variety of disabilities,” says Mitchell.

For the visually impaired, the software works with a text-to-speech reading technology to give listeners an audio reading of an SMS text message. For hearing-impaired persons, the technology relies on a unique vibrating ringtone, with the intensity of the tone reflecting the level of the threat.

The first field test included a range of visually impaired participants, the technologically savvy as well as infrequent technology users. The next field test, on April 4, will include both hearing-impaired and visually impaired participants.

“It will take a little while longer to get this but, our ultimate goal is to get to a second level of info to give advice on what to do next,” Mitchell says. “Right now we’re testing the basic systems to see how they work.”

Mitchell, who has worked on Emergency Alert System projects for the Federal Communications Commission, says the long-term plan is to get cell phone companies to adopt the technology as part of their service plans for users with disabilities, which will make for a seamless transition to the new system.

Mitchell, who is spearheading the effort, says that her team is already talking with Cingular/ATT, Nokia and BlackBerry for development, testing and implementation. Cingular donated the devices that are being used in the testing process.

“The ideal objective is that [consumers] will buy a cell phone and have the technology on there already,” says April Cline, executive director of Georgia Radio Reading Service.

Like Mitchell, she says Hurricane Katrina was a dramatic illustration of the need for this kind of service.

“People with disabilities are the ones that, in emergencies, cannot get out,” says Cline. “In the aftermath of Katrina, people that were left behind were in wheelchairs, too old, mentally retarded or blind.” SP