This coverage is also made possible through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
Radio broadcasts, emergency phone alerts, sirens, rain and thunder – that’s what a lot of us heard when Helene made landfall in Western North Carolina two years ago. And afterward, we here at BPR know that radio was one of the few methods of transmission still available when power and internet service was down.
But for Malia Johnson, the warnings didn’t come.
Even as Helene’s rain and wind battered her roof, she slept right through it, she recalled.
“I couldn't hear the radio. I couldn't watch the TV because we started losing power,” she said, as she sat in the warmly lit studio where she works as a massage therapist. “I couldn't get any information about what was happening.”
Malia Johnson is deaf. She lives in Swannanoa in a 55 plus community. She can lip-read and has cochlear implants, but the batteries died and there was no power to recharge them. In the chaos, she struggled to make sense of things. Her neighbors often forgot to look directly at her as they updated her on the storm’s damage. When she went into community hubs for information, there was too much going on and it was hard to pull anyone aside to explain her situation.
“I couldn't understand everything going on because everybody was talking at once,” Johnson said. “My emotions got the best of me. I got frustrated. I got angry.”
County officials acknowledge that the storm presented new challenges. Buncombe County American Sign Language interpreters were present at the storm briefings. But that didn’t start for over a week after the disaster, according to county communications official Stacey Wood.
“There are so few interpreters that it logistically requires a lot of organization and scheduling,” Wood said.
And many community spaces offering aid weren’t trained on the needs of Deaf people.
Buncombe County Division Manager of Emergency Management Scott Krein says the county is working with local foundations for the deaf and blind to train volunteers on how best to fill those needs. They’re also trying to get localized weather alert radios to county residents through local fire departments. These radios include special assistive lights and vibrations that can help someone with hearing loss understand the nature of a weather threat.
“It's on those blue sky days when we need to make those relationships, because during an emergency you just don't have time to build it on the fly,” Krein said.
Susan Sacco manages Asheville’s regional center for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Division of Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, which has been at work coordinating emergency preparedness for the Deaf, hard of hearing, and Deaf-blind communities.
After the storm, the state set up a Deaf Federal Emergency Management Agency agent to come help people get connected to recovery resources. After the worst had passed, the Division of Services for the Deaf collected oral histories of Deaf peoples’ experiences after the storm, which are now watchable on the office’s website, to help the public understand the challenges they faced.
Sacco, too, is deaf, and went through many of the same experiences as Johnson, relying on neighbors to convey important information. In her office, she recalled an encounter from the time with a man she knows well who drove by to check on her.
“He was listening to the radio, and he was like, ‘Can you hear this?’” Sacco said, then laughed a little. “I said, ‘Richard, I can't read lips on the radio.’"
Now, Sacco is working to make sure the county is better prepared for the next storm, and for serving the roughly 38,000 people with some level of hearing loss who live in Buncombe County — along with nearly 19,000 in Henderson County, and thousands more in the region’s more rural counties.
Sacco is training with local emergency responders to make sure they’re aware of the specific needs of deaf and hard of hearing community members.
“Trying to help their management people know, don't forget about people who are even more underserved during this disaster,” Sacco said. “Things like standing in the light and enunciating can go a long way.”
She’s also joining long-term recovery groups, many of which, she said, have considered Spanish speakers in their outreach, but rarely American Sign Language speakers. The Office also has resources on its site for emergency and recovery professionals to understand the specific needs of the Deaf community.
For Johnson, the frustrations continue. Just a couple of weeks ago, she wanted to go to an Asheville City Council meeting, where a Helene-related cliff erosion issue that affected her neighborhood was on the agenda. She thought it would be helpful for both herself and her neighbors if she went. But there’s no sign language interpreter at city meetings.
“Why would I sit there and have a headache like flipping my head back and forth like a ping-pong?” Johnson said.
So she decided not to go and caught up online, where she could read at her own pace.
