Moving Toward Inclusive Emergency Alerts in Colorado

A study has found that emergency alerts in Colorado need to be more inclusive to warn over 250,000 Coloradans who primarily speak a language other than English and more than 500,000 people with hearing and visual disabilities.

English and Spanish cover pages to final report

Gaps in emergency communications during the Grizzly Creek and Marshall fires led to media attention, and 2023 legislation commissioning the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder to identify best practices for inclusive alerting and offer recommendations to improve current alert systems in Colorado that address language and access needs.

An Assessment and Recommendations for Language and Disability Considerations

Researchers recently released their findings and recommendations for Colorado to become a national leader in emergency alerting and save lives when inevitable emergencies happen. The report emphasizes that emergency alert systems must consider the diverse needs of populations, including those with limited English proficiency (LEP) and disabilities, to improve alerting for all communities. The report also found that many emergency response personnel are interested in making alerts more inclusive but need more guidance, funding, and personnel to do so adequately.

"Research shows that certain populations are more likely to experience harm from disasters. These include but are not limited to people with limited English proficiency and those with disabilities who we focus on in this report," said Carson MacPherson-Krutsky, a Natural Hazards Center research associate who worked on the report. "By developing emergency alert systems that consider these populations' diverse needs, we can improve alerting for all communities. These considerations are essential to provide life-saving information to all Coloradans when disasters occur."

Among the findings in the report, researchers describe Colorado’s alert systems and processes as a “patchwork that, while flexible, makes it challenging to provide consistent and accessible emergency alerts.” However, this flexibility has allowed many county emergency managers to get ahead of the curve and embrace inclusive communications by adopting ReachWell, highlighted in the report. A Denver-based social venture, ReachWell has supported inclusive communications for six years, working with hundreds of school systems, nonprofits, and government agencies, including 12 county emergency notification systems in Colorado. The platform is equity-based and accommodates language diversity, literacy, privacy, government distrust, and income challenges, all well-known huddles to those working to address social issues. “We appreciate the counties’ ability to choose an alerting system that supports their unique needs. We also understand the need for counties to have consistency as a public-facing accessible alerting platform which is why ReachWell is being chosen by counties across the state that have a variety of Emergency Notification Systems,” shared Zuben Bastani, Founder and CEO of ReachWell.

Colorado Counties Ahead of the Curve

ECAlerts, Eagle County's emergency alert system, is among the many counties in Colorado using ReachWell to send emergency alerts, with several more agencies slated to launch the app in their communities in 2024. "There isn’t another tool that does what ReachWell does. It’s connecting to our existing systems, making it possible for every community member to receive emergency alerts in their preferred language for the first time,” said Birch Barron, Eagle County Emergency Manager. “But, we aren’t just checking a box to say that we offer translated messages. Now, our challenge is to encourage every new visitor, property owner, and community member to get the app to receive everything from updates on severe weather and unexpected road closures to notifications about missing persons or evacuations of buildings and neighborhoods."

Neighboring counties, Pitkin and Garfield, have also recently incorporated ReachWell into their emergency response system. “We are a resort community and our population goes anywhere from about 17,000 residents up to 50K during what we call high season, which seems to be all the time now. One of the pillars of emergency management is that we serve all members of our community equitably. And, to that point, we know it is imperative that we communicate effectively with everybody.” Despite our best efforts, we knew we were falling short,” said Valerie MacDonald, Pitkin County Emergency Manager. “The bottom line is we solved translating Pitkin Alerts in a hurry. It’s there and it’s available and we are working on increasing our enrollment.”

Equity in Emergency Management

According to FEMA, the importance of equity in emergency management is not a new concept. Historically underserved communities experience differences in preparedness and mitigation measures as well as how quickly their communities can resume social and economic life after a disaster. CU researchers identified several barriers to issuing and receiving inclusive alerts:

Emergency alerts may not be available in multiple languages.
The distribution of emergency alerts in languages other than English is often delayed, leaving populations to seek out other sources of information.
Emergency alerts may be distributed in ways that are inaccessible or undesirable.
LEP populations and populations with disabilities may lack trust in government agencies, which may reduce their engagement with emergency alerts.
Cultural context is often missing from translated emergency alert messages.
Many LEP populations may be unfamiliar with hazards in the United States.

ReachWell is overcoming hurdles to ensure everyone has access to safety alerts.

Scan to download the ReachWell App available on Apple and Android

The benefit of using the ReachWell app is that anyone can download the app, without sharing personal information and follow their local emergency management channel, like EC Alerts. This is reducing a critical barrier and increasing opportunities so all people, including those from vulnerable and underserved communities, can get help when needed. ReachWell can simultaneously support messaging across multiple regions and improve message quality with proper composition.

The CU report found that Colorado relies heavily on opt-in emergency alert systems but most localities report opt-in rates below 40%. These systems create barriers for everyone, but especially those who don’t speak English or who have disabilities. Tracking alert subscribers and measuring the efficacy of alerts is a challenge.

“Our world experiences high levels of government distrust where individuals do not wish to share personal information. Opt-in rates also suffer when communicating requires residents to maintain phone numbers and email which we know doesn’t happen among lower-income communities. Further, complicated sign-ups, passwords, and logins prevent low-tech residents from opting in,” said Bastani. ReachWell designed its platform to support all these use cases by not requiring personally identified information, logins, or signups, allowing low-income residents to continue to be alerted on their device after they’ve discarded their emails and phone numbers and allowing users to choose their preferred language and receive alerts without being tracked. Perhaps most importantly, in areas where ReachWell is utilized, residents can receive alerts and learn about emergency notifications through their trusted messengers, like nonprofits, schools and other community-based organizations.

Prior to launching in a community, ReachWell works with staff to provide marketing and communications training and extensive testing to enable more local partners to be better prepared before a critical situation arises. ReachWell has firsthand experience recognizing how two identically trained individuals can interpret an event and translate it differently. That is why ReachWell's message translation service has been honed for low-income and migrant communities for years, and with every user and every message sent by a local partner, the innovative ReachWell AI technology continues to improve.

As ReachWell works with local partners to improve access to information and resources, best practices are shared across communities and lessons learned result in innovations that improve technology and services for everyone. ReachWell is designed to support the low-tech-literate residents. Working with newcomer families, ReachWell is aware of the hurdles tech adoption brings, which is why the adoption friction has been minimized to get users to adopt and keep them connected long after their devices change, service ends, or contact information changes.

Recommendations for Colorado

When preparing the report, CU researchers surveyed emergency response personnel in Colorado such as 9-1-1 offices and Public Safety Answering Points, emergency managers, sheriffs, public information officers, police chiefs/officials, and fire officials, and found interest in incorporating systems and practices that would make alerts more inclusive is high but recommended that more guidance, funds, and personnel are needed to do so adequately. Many ReachWell partners have struggled with identifying, training, and retaining the right personnel to support their alerts. Even with a fully staffed team, knowing the languages required in any situation is impossible. Further, when seconds mean lives waiting on humans to deliver translations for minutes, it could result in catastrophic consequences. ReachWell offers a cost-effective solution that we have successfully implemented with positive feedback across Colorado.