North Carolina Provides Weather Radios for Hearing-Impaired
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The radios are specially fitted with a strobe light and vibrator to alert the hearing-impaired.

By Don Ross
(02/23/05 -- DURHAM) — It is an inexpensive device that saves lives.

Weather radios alert people when bad weather is moving through the area. The state is working to make sure that deaf and hearing-impaired people have access to the life-saving radios.

Edna Goss is hearing-impaired, but she knows when severe weather is blowing through. A weather radio sits next to the Durham woman's crocheting chair in the living room.

"Lets you know there is a storm coming," she said. "We would not know unless somebody called and told you, or something."

The radio is a gift from the state. It purchased the specially equipped radios with $500,000 in grants. County social services departments chose the recipients.

It is the same kind of radio available in stores, but adapted with a strobe light and vibrator that the hard-of-hearing can place behind their pillows so they can feel the weather alert at night.

"At that point, they're going to get up. They're going to turn on their radio or television and find out what's going on," said Tom Ditt with the N.C. Division of Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

Goss keeps her radio in the living room, but Ditt says that's the wrong place.

"It should be in the bedroom," he said. "If you remember back to the '88 tornadoes, it happened at 1:00 in the morning." The Nov. 28, 1988, tornado ravaged north Raleigh in the middle of the night, killing four people and injuring over 157 others.

With a little help, Goss rearranged her radio, so she will know when dangerous weather threatens at night.

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