NAD, State Assocs., DHHIG Commend NYC, Maryland, and Massachusetts For Hurricane Sandy Communication Access
The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) along with its state association affiliates in the affected areas, and the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Government (DHHIG) join together to applaud government entities that provided qualified, expert American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters and captioning of emergency announcements in the course of preparing for Hurricane Sandy.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick all held press conferences with highly qualified sign language interpreters which made it possible to fully share important information essential to preparing for Hurricane Sandy in their respective areas. Others may have also done the same and this is not intended to be comprehensive but to thank every government official and agency that provided and made visible on television screens both qualified American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters and captioning to make the emergency information about Hurricane Sandy available to 48 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the country.
“In events of devastating natural disasters, too often steps are not taken to remove communication ba