鈥淚t鈥檚 flooding here. The water is up to the first step,鈥� a cellphone-garbled voice told Adriana Men茅ndez in Spanish.
驴Qu茅 debemos hacer? Asked the mother in a family of seven. 鈥淲hat should we do?鈥�
Hurricane Debby hit Florida at 7 a.m. on Aug. 5th.
By 9 a.m., flooded the land around the family鈥檚 mobile home in Suwannee County.
At 2 p.m. 鈥淚 received a second call from them, obviously way more scared,鈥� Men茅ndez said. Water now reached the second step.
驴Qu茅 debemos hacer? They asked again. 鈥淲hat should we do?鈥�
Men茅ndez heard the question dozens of times over the course of the storm as she worked a Spanish-language resource line managed by the .
Callers from north central Florida told her of flooded roads, power outages and stalled cars. They asked for guidance, information and help. Men茅ndez received 35 to 40 Spanish-language calls during the storm and another 150 to 160 over the month that followed.
READ MORE: Tropical Storm Helene forms in Caribbean. It's expected to become a hurricane and threaten Florida
Florida is a linguistic treasure trove. Floridians speak different languages at home, led by English, Spanish and Haitian Creole. But a WUFT by-county analysis reveals inconsistency in emergency communications that leads to confusion. Most rural, agricultural counties in north central Florida lack in-house interpreters and multilingual social media outreach. More than a third don鈥檛 have bilingual staff or call-in language lines.
Even among those that offer such services, and mean many residents avoid government officials and seek information from churches, friends and advocacy groups during disasters. The Suwannee County Emergency Operations Center, like seven in the region, staffed bilingual personnel during Debby and offered professional interpreters by phone. Yet Chris Volz, assistant director of emergency management, said his office didn鈥檛 receive any Spanish-language calls.
Florida law requires consistent language assistance for , and . But state law does not address multilingual emergency communications despite Florida鈥檚 vulnerability to hurricanes. Counties are left to create their own multilingual communications strategies. Speakers of Spanish, Mayan languages and others are left unsure where to turn.
The problem is not confined to small counties. Palm Beach County leads the state in agricultural production and more than a third of the population 鈥� nearly people 鈥� don鈥檛 speak English at home. While the county offers 32-page hurricane-planning guides in English, Spanish and Haitian Creole, graphics including evacuation maps are in English with captions advising to copy and paste text into Google Translate to read them.
Florida鈥檚 Division of Emergency Management lists language in its criteria for assessing county-level plans. The state鈥檚 , intended to unify state and local response, mentions language only once in its 232 pages. 鈥淭he ability to communicate with non-English speaking persons may pose a challenge during disasters,鈥� the 2024 edition reads.
But neither document, nor state law, guides counties to overcome that challenge.
A hidden need
More than 126,000 farmworkers live in Florida, according to the National Center for Farmworker Health. They鈥檙e a foundation of the state鈥檚 agricultural economy and a population particularly vulnerable to disasters.
Guatemalan immigrants from Huehuetenango comprise a significant subset. They鈥檙e driven out of their home region by that threaten economically important coffee production.
A majority of Huehuetenango鈥檚 population Maya. They speak any of 22 Mayan languages, which are not mutually intelligible with each other or with Spanish; it鈥檚 a misconception that Carmen Cadena frequently corrects.
鈥淭hey have nothing to do with each other, they are not a 鈥榮ub language鈥� or a dialect or a branch鈥� nothing to do,鈥� said Cadena in Spanish, founder of the Florida-based company, Maya Interpreters.
Originally from Huehuetenango, Cadena and her mother immigrated in 1983 and worked various agricultural jobs throughout the United States. They settled in LaBelle, seat of agricultural Hendry County in southwest Florida, in 1990.
Cadena learned English in school and quickly became the go-to interpreter for her community. Founding Maya Interpreters felt natural. Most translation companies rarely offer Cadena鈥檚 native Akateko or later-acquired Q鈥檃njob鈥檃l.
鈥淭hey don鈥檛 see them as needed,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut I know that they鈥檙e needed because I鈥檝e been interpreting for my Mom since I was eight years old.鈥�
In 2015, the last time the Census Bureau published , fewer than 900 Floridians reported speaking a Mayan language at home.
But, between of Latino populations and in Guatemalan immigration, 鈥渘obody knows how many people of Mayan background are in Florida,鈥� Allan Burns, a University of Florida anthropology professor emeritus and author of 鈥淢aya in Exile,鈥� said by email.
He estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people of Mayan heritage may live in Florida today, but due to linguistic discrimination and pressure to learn English, the number who speak an indigenous language is likely much lower.
Still, Mayan languages have a local presence. In , three Spanish-speaking officers responded to a domestic violence call in Gainesville only to find the victim, who was from Guatemala, didn鈥檛 speak Spanish.
UF social science researcher Miranda Carver Martin led a that found, among many other factors, limited Spanish proficiency made some north central Florida farm workers particularly vulnerable to disasters.
Martin interviewed community-based health workers who engage with area farmworkers. 鈥淗ere I have people who speak Zapotec, Tecom谩n, Mam, Otom铆,鈥� said one. 鈥淪panish is difficult for them, imagine English is even more difficult.鈥�
Another described linguistic discrimination against non-Spanish speakers, saying they asked a man if he spoke a Mayan language, 鈥渁nd he said that he'd rather not answer. I don't know if sometimes people give him grief.鈥�
No county in north central Florida provides emergency information in Mayan languages and interpreters are hard to find. Due to 鈥渙verwhelming demand鈥� nationwide, Cadena had to post a notice on the Maya Interpreters website: 鈥淪ome languages by appointment only.鈥�
Of course, extreme weather doesn鈥檛 wait for an appointment.
The kids of disaster comms
In December 2021, a deadly tornado outbreak charged through four states in four hours. Joseph Trujillo-Falc贸n, a hazard researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, interviewed community members in Kentucky about emergency alerts during the storm.
Many Guatemalan families in the area spoke the Mayan language K鈥檌che鈥�. 鈥淲hen that tornado came, they essentially played a game of telephone,鈥� he said.
Local community leaders translated English tornado alerts to Spanish for their students, who in turn translated them to K鈥檌che鈥� for their family members. As anyone who has played telephone could predict, the message deteriorated with each step.
Trujillo-Falc贸n said children serve a 鈥渂ig, big role鈥� in communicating risk during disasters. 鈥淔rom one moment to the next, those cultural norms are broken and we see that the kids are saying to their parents: 鈥榞et in your shelter now.鈥� That鈥檚 a very tough responsibility.鈥�
Cadena remembers the responsibility well. 鈥淚 saw it as almost normal, as part of my life,鈥� she said. 鈥淥bviously when I grew up, I realized that it was super difficult [...] at an age as young as 15, 16 years old, you don鈥檛 know what you鈥檙e doing.鈥�
Gracia Fernandez, Alachua County鈥檚 immigrant and language access coordinator, hopes to keep children out of this taxing role. In June, the county passed its . It detailed plans for interpretation systems and vital document translation, including a clause that stipulates family members should not be used as interpreters.
Since the Florida Division of Emergency Management and all Florida counties receive federal dollars, they must abide by federal anti-discrimination measures including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, among others.
The policies mandate that recipients take 鈥溾�� to their programs and services for people with limited English proficiency.
But no exact threshold triggers a responsibility to provide multilingual messaging. 鈥淔ederal guidance says that entities should develop language access plans,鈥� explained Jake Hofstetter, a policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute. 鈥淚t doesn't necessarily say that they must.鈥�
The typical benchmark for translating vital written documents into a given language is when that group makes up 5% or 1,000 people in the population (whichever is less). That measure is a 鈥溾�� to demonstrate compliance with Title VI, but not a binding requirement of it. .
Gilchrist County, where 1,000 residents, or 5.9%, speak a language other than English at home, is among six counties in WUFT鈥檚 analysis that doesn鈥檛 offer in-house certified interpreters, Spanish-language social media or a call-in language line. Multilingual alerts are 鈥渟omething we鈥檙e looking into,鈥� said Emergency Management Director Ralph Smith, 鈥渂ut not something we鈥檝e ever needed.鈥�
Auto translations, auto misunderstandings
Fernandez spent Hurricane Debby in Alachua County鈥檚 emergency management office, translating alerts to Spanish amid a flurry of action.
It was the first time the county, where more than (17.5%) speak a language other than English at home, offered real-time Spanish language social media alerts.
Ask Fernandez if automatic translation tools could鈥檝e done the job, and she鈥檒l laugh.
鈥淭here are absolutely times when it would be okay to say, you know, 鈥業'm not really sure that we're understanding each other. Let me just whip out the little robot in my pocket that detects the language that you're speaking and automatically translates it into the language that I can understand,鈥欌�� she said.
Emergency alerts and official documents, Fernandez emphasized, are not among those times.
鈥淭here should be the same standard in communication in English as there is in Spanish and Haitian Creole and Mandarin and Vietnamese, right?鈥� she said. 鈥淭hat has to be done by a qualified professional.鈥�
The National Weather Service鈥檚 Storm Prediction Center is the main voice of tornado and storm alerts throughout the U.S. In 2015, the Center translated its risk scale to help Spanish speakers understand storm severity.
Leadership didn鈥檛 know until six years later its scale was misleading Spanish speakers.
In 2021, Trujillo-Falc贸n and his team studied how Spanish speakers such as leve, elevado and moderado (the Center鈥檚 translations of slight, enhanced and moderate). Fewer than 10 people of the 1,050 surveyed ranked words in their intended order.
The team worked with linguists to design and evaluate a new scale, which the Center implemented in 2022.
In a , Trujillo-Falc贸n found a similar misinterpretation of the National Weather Service and FEMA鈥檚 Spanish translations of a tornado 鈥渨arning鈥� and 鈥渨atch.鈥� When given a written description, 66% of English speakers and only 38% of Spanish speakers correctly identified a tornado watch.
Accurate, Spanish-language weather notifications can be the difference between safety and crisis.
A Guatemalan immigrant in Kentucky told Trujillo-Falc贸n that, during the 2021 tornado outbreak, they didn鈥檛 see any Spanish alerts about the tornado until ten minutes before it hit, saying if they had missed it, 鈥淚 would have stayed upstairs.鈥�
When the voice of authority is the voice of oppression
Even when multilingual emergency resources are available, Spanish and Mayan language speakers may hesitate to use them.
Miranda Carver Martin鈥檚 study lists more than two pages of barriers that make farmworkers in north central Florida especially vulnerable to disasters: job precarity, substandard housing conditions, lack of worker safety protections and anti-immigrant policies, to name a few.
Other researchers not affiliated with Martin鈥檚 study echoed one obstacle: fear of public entities.
鈥淎 lot of these communities don鈥檛 trust government agencies,鈥� said Trujillo-Falc贸n. 鈥淗onestly, with the history that these agencies have, we can鈥檛 blame them.鈥�
UF disaster researcher Jason Von Meding at the Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience said such distrust worsened when FEMA moved into the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2003.
鈥淔EMA is in the same organization as ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], as border agencies that have separated families in our community,鈥� Trujillo-Falc贸n added. 鈥淭hey have every right not to trust these organizations.鈥�
Such mistrust may help explain why language-access needs can go unnoticed.
On the path to accessibility
Trujillo-Falc贸n remembers watching TV with his mom, who speaks only Spanish, when she asked a surprising question.
鈥淗ey, aren鈥檛 those your categories?鈥�
On screen, a bilingual meteorologist warned of severe weather using the risk categories Trujillo-Falc贸n helped design.
While the news was nerve-wracking, the Illinois researcher took pride in knowing this community-informed tool was making an impact.
鈥淚t was a very beautiful day,鈥� he said with a smile.
Alachua County鈥檚 Language Access Plan and Trujillo-Falc贸n鈥檚 storm center collaboration are two of the ongoing efforts to improve multilingual alerts and build trust between government agencies and community members.
This year for the first time, the National Hurricane Center launched Spanish-language advisories. The National Weather Service, which has offered Spanish-language forecasts for 30 years, is to expand their translation offerings to Simplified Chinese, Samoan and Vietnamese, with more languages to come.
Meanwhile, community organizations continue to fill in gaps. Men茅ndez stays in touch with the families who called during Hurricane Debby. While work is scarce and the mosquitoes remain, the family of seven in Suwannee County is safe and dry.
Now it鈥檚 our turn to ask the question:
驴Qu茅 debemos hacer? 鈥淲hat should we do?鈥�
And to answer.
Resources:
- The Project S.A.L.U.D hotline (352-575-8024) offers Spanish-language support to callers from Alachua, Columbia, Marion, Levy, Gilchrist and Suwannee counties.
- and information for hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, heat and more from the National Weather Service
- and in Akateko, K鈥檌che鈥�, Mam, Mixteco, Ixil, Kreyol and Q鈥檃njob鈥檃l on storm safety and other health topics from the Rural Women鈥檚 Health Project
- The National Weather Service maintains an of official weather terminology
If you believe you have been unfairly denied language access services from an agency that receives federal funding, you may be eligible to with the
Copyright 2024 WUFT 89.1
