The winter storm slamming much of the United States hits a National Weather Service that struggles to provide emergency alerts in languages other than English, a federal watchdog agency warned Monday.
Inadequate funding and staffing levels, imperfect AI translation tools and the Trump administration’s declaration of English as the nation’s official language all contribute to the ongoing multilingual weather alert challenges, according to the report by the Government Accountability Office. With an estimated 26 million U.S. residents having limited ability to understand English, the GAO stressed the shortcomings need to be addressed.
“If people with limited English proficiency cannot understand emergency weather alerts provided in English, they may face greater risk during extreme weather events such as tornadoes, hurricanes, winter storms, and flash floods,” the GAO noted, adding that “in addition, when individuals cannot understand weather alerts or evacuation instructions, it can create confusion and slow emergency response efforts.”
The congressional watchdog agency recommended that the weather service develop an updated implementation plan for the agency’s AI language translation project. The Commerce Department’s NOAA agreed with the recommendation and said in the formal response to GAO that it would update that AI project as part of a comprehensive language access plan.
