Improving access to earthquake early warning for the deaf community

When a strong earthquake occurs, the ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning System prompts organizations to send phone alerts in California, Oregon and Washington that are expected to experience strong tremors. The warning may give people precious seconds to fall, take cover, and hold on. In the moments after an earthquake, other audible clues, such as the sounds of falling objects or the crackling of fire, can alert people to ongoing danger.

But those in the deaf and hard of hearing (DHH+) community may not notice these signs, putting them at greater risk of harm than hearing people. Past earthquake statistics reflect this disparity: The death rate in the 1995 Kobe earthquake in Japan, for example, was more than 4 times higher among deaf people than among hearing people, according to the Kobe Association of the Deaf.

“Technology takes off without our input, feedback or opinions.”

Research on the effectiveness of earthquake early warning systems like ShakeAlert within the DHH+ community is virtually non-existent. But a group of deaf scientists is studying the issue, interviewing members of the DHH+ community about their experiences with earthquake early warning. They presented their findings on December 10 at the 2024 AGU Annual Meeting in Washington, DC

“Technology takes off without our input, feedback or opinions,” says Kota Takayama, a social worker at Gallaudet University and co-author of the new research who is deaf. “Technology becomes useless because it does not help us; They didn't ask us what we needed.”

Accessible alerts

For an earthquake early warning system to be effective, a person must receive the alert, understand the alert message, and know what to do. The research team held dialogue sessions with eight students from the DHH+ community who had each experienced an earthquake to learn about their experiences with earthquake early warning systems – both the alerts themselves and the extent to which prior training and education impacts their ability to respond to earthquakes. Alerts.

All participants reported that they preferred receiving alert messages in English, although one deaf-blind participant noted that text alerts may not be available to screen readers and are not compatible with Braille platforms that translate text into an accessible format.

In 2023, the Federal Communications Commission adopted rules requiring wireless service providers to make wireless emergency alerts available in American Sign Language (ASL). The agency is currently seeking community input on the effectiveness and format of ASL videos that could be included in alerts.

The ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system provides alerts seconds before shaking occurs, such as when a 4.6-magnitude earthquake struck Los Angeles in August. But the alerts are not accessible to many deaf and hard of hearing people, according to new research. Credit: Robert de Groot

“Expository information is very limited [those in the DHH+ community] “People who have been widely marginalized from emergency information and training,” signed Audrey Cooper, a linguistic and late-life anthropologist at Gallaudet University and co-author of the new study. “When a disaster happens, it makes the situation worse for the community because they have little information to rely on.”

According to the research team, an accessible earthquake early warning system will include more visual and tactile cues, as well as additional options for different languages ​​within text alerts. Earthquake early warning alerts should come from places other than a mobile phone, such as alerts on public transportation, on television screens, or from a wearable smart watch, Takayama said. But the team said more research is needed to determine exactly what makes an earthquake early warning system the most accessible to the DHH+ community.

ShakeAlert has partnerships with some organizations that already implement non-cell phone alert delivery. Some commuter rail systems in Southern California use ShakeAlert to automatically slow trains, and a school in Washington sends earthquake alerts through its public address system. Other partnerships include a hospital, university campus, fire station and water utility systems.

“Often, these systems and programs were not built with accessibility in mind,” said Carson McPherson-Krutsky, a natural hazards researcher at the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder who was not involved in the new research. She said the new research is “really important and really exciting,” especially since most of the authors had lived experience in the DHH+ community, which is unusual in risk research.

The ShakeAlert project reaches out to the research team and other linguistically diverse communities to advance the goal of “earthquake early warning for all,” said Robert De Groot, ShakeAlert operations team leader.

“USGS ShakeAlert and its government partners are determined to make sure that what they learn from their research is actually put to immediate use,” he said.

Before the disaster strikes

Although changes to the actual warning systems are important, Takayama emphasized that the bulk of the accessibility improvements needed are for community-level preparedness and training. “We need to get DHH+ people on board early,” he signed off.

Study participants reported that they were relying mainly on informal networks, such as their families or other members of the DHH+ community, for information on how to respond to alerts. Seven of the eight participants reported that before or after receiving the initial nudges, they wanted to access expanded contextual information in touch-supportive ASL and ASL, which described how to respond to the nudges.

“The potential to partner with the disability community is huge here.”

Many people with DHH+ suffer from “dinner table syndrome,” a term that describes the isolation and exclusion that occurs when DHH people surrounded by hearing people are excluded from conversations. This routine exclusion leads to gaps in knowledge about all kinds of important information, including earthquake preparedness information. Earthquake training in schools is not always available to DHH+ students, said Michelle Cook, a structural geologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a co-author of the new study who is deaf.

“There is no public information in advance to share with the entire DHH+ community regarding what they can expect when these types of emergencies occur,” Cooper signed off.

In their 2024 paper exposing the dearth of research on earthquake early warning and the DHH+ community, Takayama, Cooper, Cook, and their co-authors emphasized that DHH+ personnel should be included in conversations about how to improve disaster warning systems and training courses for these systems to be operational. In fact it is accessible by the community.

“The potential to partner with the disability community is huge here,” Cooper signed off. “If scientists, public engagement people and trainers reach out to… [DHH+] Community members, this is where they'll get all these great ideas on how to improve the entire system.

Removing barriers for DHH+ scientists is key to making disaster response systems accessible as well, Takayama signed off. “We need more of them.”

—Grace Van Dillen (@GVD__), staff writer

Editor's Note: Unless otherwise requested by the source, this article uses the lowercase “deaf” to refer to a person's hearing status and the capitalized “deaf” to refer to members of the community, some of whom are hearing friends, family, and allies.

Citation: Van Dielen, J. (2025), Improving Access to Earthquake Early Warning for the Deaf Community, EOS, 106, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EO250001. Published January 2, 2025. Text © 2025. AGU. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 Unless otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission of the copyright owner is prohibited.

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