Research two of us ' Carson MacPherson-Krutsky and Mary Painter ' did with researcher Melissa Villarreal shows only 4 in 10 Colorado residents have opted in to receive local emergency alerts. And many alerts may not be written with complete information, translated into the languages residents speak, or put into formats accessible to people with vision or hearing loss. This means some of our most vulnerable neighbors could miss crucial information during a crisis. Alerts are complex. They can come from a variety of official sources, including 911 centers, weather forecast centers and others. Alerts can also come in many forms, ranging from emails and texts to sirens and radio broadcasts. These fires were destructive and highlighted issues related to emergency alerting. Alerts about the fires and calls to evacuate were delayed and inconsistently received. Most were only available in English despite census data that shows 1 in 10 residents of Eagle and Garfield counties speak Spanish...
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