Universal Access to Emergency Alerts

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Advisory Committee to Increase Access for Emergency Communications
NJN Public Television and the New Jersey Library for the Blind and Handicapped have joined efforts with SpectraRep on a national pilot project to make emergency information more accessible to those who have visual and hearing impairments.

During Spring 2006, NJN brought together key stakeholders to begin a discussion about the communications needs of individuals with visual and hearing disabilities, and we are now establishing an Advisory Committee to Increase Access for Emergency Communications which will help shape the Access to Emergency Alerts for People with Disabilities initiative. The goal for this Committee is to evaluate and create a road map to see how technology can be employed to provide effective messaging for special needs residents in the event of an emergency. Most recently, the Committee has designed a survey to gather some important information about how emergency communications are handled in New Jersey and what best practices exist for the content and technology associated with this messaging. (more)

FCC Requirements for Access
Providing access to emergency information is a timely issue. In July 2007, the FCC reminded broadcast stations that they must make emergency information accessible to persons with disabilities. To accommodate persons with hearing disabilities, the FCC requires that stations providing emergency information in the aural portion of the broadcast should also provide such information using closed captioning or other methods of visual presentation (such as open captioning, crawls, scrolls) that appear on the screen.

To accommodate persons with visual disabilities, the FCC requires that emergency information provided in the video portion of a newscast must be made accessible by broadcasting an oral description of the emergency in the main audio; emergency information provided during other programming should be accompanied by an aural tone which is designed to alert the person with a visual disability that the broadcaster is providing emergency information by another means (e.g. secondary audio programming).

NJN and the Library for the Blind and Handicapped
NJN and the Library for the Blind and Handicapped are committed to meeting the communications needs of all New Jerseyans. NJN has worked with the Library for more than two decades to provide universal access to quality programs and services for individuals who are blind or visually impaired. NJN has been a pioneer in providing Audiovision for all four of its TV Second Audio Program (SAP) channels for video description and radio reading services. More than 2,000 New Jersey citizens with visual impairments rely on NJN to get their news, books or magazines read aloud to them on NJN.

Members of the community who are hearing impaired or learning English as a second language also can turn to NJN News and every other program on NJN and benefit from the captioning provided. And now NJN and the Library have partnered to advance the Access to Emergency Alerts for People with Disabilities initiative.

NJN and SpectraRep
NJN has also developed a partnership with SpectraRep, Inc. which provides systems and services for distribution of information over terrestrial and wireless systems, including applications for emergency alerting. SpectraRep and NJN are currently working on a pilot project to deploy a demonstration of DEAS (Digital emergency Alert System) that will enable the State Office of Emergency Management to disseminate text, voice, and video EAS alerts over NJN’s digital broadcast signal, and provide reliable communications to four New Jersey radio stations.

The plan is to incorporate into this state level system core technology that will provide access for individuals with hearing and visually impairments. The goal of this pilot is to deliver more accessible audio and video information, using other technologies – such as mobile and text messaging devices, as well as the Internet –in addition to traditional communication media like radio and television.

NJN is the only public television station that has partnered with the National Center for Accessible Media in Boston and SpectraRep to focus on access technologies for people with disabilities.