Millions of Americans don’t speak English. Now they won’t be warned before weather disasters.

When the deadly hurricanes in the small town of Mayfield, Kentucky, in December 2021, were one slow -to -act, not because they did not know what to do. They did not know that they are He should Do anything.

The family of immigrants in Guatemallan spoke only the Spanish language, so they did not understand the alert of the hurricane that appeared on their mobile phones in English. “I was not looking at [an information source] He told me that this will become ugly. ” A study on how migrant communities She replied to the warnings.

Another alert appeared in the Spanish language, and Rosa and her family rushed to the basement of the shelter. After ten minutes, Hurricane destroyed the second floor where they were.

to At least 30 yearsThe national weather service, or NWS, provided heavy handicraft translations and employment to Spanish. Researchers have found that even late translations Contribute To evacuate the orthopedic, injuries, and preventive deaths. These types of tragedies have prompted efforts to improve the speed and scope of weather alerts at local, state and national levels.

Early Biden Administration, the agency started a series of Experimental experimental projects To improve language translations of harsh weather alerts throughout the country. The artificial intelligence translation company was behind one of them. By the end of 2023, the agency has launched a product using the LILT artificial intelligence program to automate weather forecasts and warnings in Spanish and Chinese.

“By providing weather forecasts and warnings in multiple languages, NWS will improve the willingness, society and individual flexibility as climate change pays the most extreme weather events.” He said In a press release of the launch of 2023. Since then, the service has also added automatic translations to Vietnamese, French and Samwan. Joseph Trugilo Fallon, a researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana Champin, said the machine learning system can translate alerts in just two to three minutes-what might take a human translator-

Now these alerts have disappeared. NWS has suspended its automatic linguistic translations indefinitely because its contract with LILT has turned, according to what he said April 1 administrative message Issued by the agency. Sudden change has left almost concerned experts 71 million people In the United States who speak a language other than English at home. Since climate change changes charges such as hurricanes, thermal waves and floods, the risks were not deadly or more deadly.

“Since these translations are no longer available, societies that do not understand the English language are less safe and less aware of the dangerous weather that may occur in their region,” said an employee of the peripheral administration and the atmosphere familiar with the translation project. The employee said hundreds of thousands of alerts were translated by the LILT AI language model.

An internal note showed by GRIT showed that the national weather service stopped radio translations of offices in its southern region, where 77 million people Live, and do not plan to return to a previous way of translation – this means that its broadcasts will not contain Spanish translations of predictions and warnings. This step angered some workers in the local NWS offices, according to the talks that were transferred to the employee, because the decision not to restart radio translations was due to the burden of work, as the workforce in the service face discounts under Trump’s management.

The employee said that no clear reason was given due to the expiry of the contract and the agency stood up. “Because of the end of the contract, NWS stopped to the services of translating the automatic language of our products until further notice,” said a spokesman for the weather service in the national ocean management in the field of management. Musher did not address whether NWS planned to resume translations, and did not address the additional Grist requests for clarification. LILT did not respond to a request for comment.

Fernando Rivera, a disaster sociologist at the University of Central Florida, who studied property rights issues in the field [Trump] Make the English language the official language. Rivera also referred to how, Within hours of the president’s inaugurationThe Trump administration closed the Spanish version of the White House. Trump’s mandate was canceled He is a Sunni contract, former President Bill Clinton Federal agencies and beneficiaries of federal funds must provide linguistic aid to non -English speakers.

“At the end of the day, there are things that should not be politicized,” Rivera said.

Among the millions of people living in the United States who do not speak English at home, the Spanish majority, followed by Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Arabic. Now that the contract has turned with LILT, it will be difficult to fulfill the Federal Communications Paradise Pre -Trump ruling on January 8 Trujillo Falcón, a researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana Chambine, said that wireless service providers support emergency alerts in the most common languages ​​that are speaking in the United States, said Trujillo Falcón, a researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana Chambine.

The gap should be filled with hand translations, or by using less accurate mechanical translations that can lead to confusion. For example, it is known that Google’s translation is used “Tornado Clock” for “Tornado Watch” and seizure of the word “Hair Brush” for “brush fires” When translating English warnings into Spanish. On the contrary, LILT specifically trained her model on weather terms to improve their accuracy.

Although urban areas may contain news outlets such as Telemundo or Univision that can help reach Spanish -speaking masses, rural areas do not usually enjoy these resources, but Trujillo Falcón said: “This often worries me many multi -language societies.”

It is a problem even in the states that include a large number of Spanish speakers, such as California. “It is assumed that the automatic translations of emergency information are common everywhere across California, but this is not the case, especially in rural and agricultural areas where we have farmers and large number of migrants,” said Michael Mendes, Professor of Environmental Policy and Planning at the University of California, Irvin.

Méndez said that the Spanish speakers had been targeted through wrong information during the harsh weather. A study in November found that Latinists who use social media in Spanish news were More vulnerable to wrong political novels Regarding the natural relief of disasters and other issues other than those who use the media in English. Mendes said that the national weather service alerts were “an important tool for people to obtain the correct information, especially now, from a reliable source that was examined.”

Amy Liebman, chief program official in the network of non -profit migrant doctors, sees that she places a “deeper burden” on local communities and states to fill the gaps. In the days that passed on the weather service contract, News News erupted for the first time, which is a wonderful group of local organizations throughout the country I have already announced They will multiply their work Provide non -English emergency information.

But local and state disaster systems also tend to be full of issues related to language access services. The Natural Risk Center report was issued last year I found that at the hot points of a hurricane such as Florida and the resources of the state and the province of the state and the boycott of those who have a limited, rare and inconsistent English efficiency. Liebman said that the lack of weather alerts in the national emergency situations “will have very profound impacts.” “It is an effect of life or death.”