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http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/stories/MYSA20050913.Deaflink.cf4d61f.html
George Taylor and Angela Brown were like countless New Orleans residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina: They struggled to flee as chaos gripped the flooded city.
Unlike most of the other evacuees, though, the two are deaf, and they often were unable to communicate with relief workers and neighbors as they looked for a way out.
They sought shelter in the Superdome, where a man was stabbed just yards away from them as they slept, unaware of the nearby commotion. And they consider themselves lucky to have understood the instructions of relief workers that got them to San Antonio's KellyUSA shelter.
"We've tried to read the lips of hearing people, but we would still miss important things," Brown, 39, said through a sign language interpreter as her year-old daughter, Queena, clung to her leg.
But a fast-growing San Antonio company understands the difficulties of evacuees such as Brown and Taylor, 40, and is trying to make recovery easier for the hundreds of hearing-impaired people uprooted by Katrina.
DeafLink, which provides around-the-clock access to sign language interpreters, has installed video conferencing equipment at KellyUSA and shelters in Houston and Dallas for free to help relief workers communicate with deaf evacuees.
"These people need to know what's going on," said Kay Chiodo, president of the 3-year-old DeafLink. "They're lost without this kind of communication. They only know what's happening in the perimeter of the world they're seeing right in front of them."
Chiodo's company has 40 interpreters who provide sign language interpretation via computers equipped with videoconferencing cameras. The interpreters work from a company call center and facilitate talk between clients — in this case, relief workers at Kelly — and the deaf.
DeafLink installed two such systems at Kelly shortly after evacuees arrived. One has helped doctors talk with deaf patients; the other has helped deaf people entering the shelter ask questions about services they're receiving.
As if the evacuation wasn't overwhelming enough, Taylor said both he and his wife had a hard time figuring out what was going on in their first days at the shelter. Volunteer interpreters have worked there since it opened, but the pair was sometimes overwhelmed.
"Where are the lines for FEMA?" Taylor signed. "For Social Security? I would have been lost without this help."
Some of the stories of the 20 deaf evacuees at Kelly could have ended in tragedy without DeafLink's help, he added.
A 16-year-old girl went three days without immunizations against diseases such as hepatitis because she was unaware they were being offered. Another didn't eat during his first days in the shelter because he thought people had to pay for the meals.
DeafLink is a for-profit business that provides service to almost 300 clients, among them Goodwill, University Hospital, ReMax real estate and the San Antonio Police Department. But Chiodo said she didn't think twice about providing services for free.
Working with telecom vendors TimeWarner Cable and SBC Communications Inc., the company connected services in a Dallas shelter Thursday and at Houston's Astrodome the week before. At least 150 deaf people are believed to be in the Houston shelter.
"We just had to be there," Chiodo said. "This is what we're about. My shareholders understood that."
Privately held DeafLink's backers include entrepreneurs and established companies from around the country, she said.
The deaf people in the Kelly shelter now are working to figure out where they can stay and work. Several, including the Brown and Taylor family, are splitting time between Kelly and the Methodist Mission Home, which is better equipped to help the hearing-impaired.
Until they had access to the online interpreters, it would have been difficult to take those steps, said deaf evacuee Bruce Johnson, 53.
"It's been wonderful to be able to communicate something as simple as saying that I have a headache," Johnson said, speaking through an interpreter. "Until we got DeafLink, I couldn't even talk to a doctor."
George Taylor and Angela Brown were like countless New Orleans residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina: They struggled to flee as chaos gripped the flooded city.
Unlike most of the other evacuees, though, the two are deaf, and they often were unable to communicate with relief workers and neighbors as they looked for a way out.
They sought shelter in the Superdome, where a man was stabbed just yards away from them as they slept, unaware of the nearby commotion. And they consider themselves lucky to have understood the instructions of relief workers that got them to San Antonio's KellyUSA shelter.
"We've tried to read the lips of hearing people, but we would still miss important things," Brown, 39, said through a sign language interpreter as her year-old daughter, Queena, clung to her leg.
But a fast-growing San Antonio company understands the difficulties of evacuees such as Brown and Taylor, 40, and is trying to make recovery easier for the hundreds of hearing-impaired people uprooted by Katrina.
DeafLink, which provides around-the-clock access to sign language interpreters, has installed video conferencing equipment at KellyUSA and shelters in Houston and Dallas for free to help relief workers communicate with deaf evacuees.
"These people need to know what's going on," said Kay Chiodo, president of the 3-year-old DeafLink. "They're lost without this kind of communication. They only know what's happening in the perimeter of the world they're seeing right in front of them."
Chiodo's company has 40 interpreters who provide sign language interpretation via computers equipped with videoconferencing cameras. The interpreters work from a company call center and facilitate talk between clients — in this case, relief workers at Kelly — and the deaf.
DeafLink installed two such systems at Kelly shortly after evacuees arrived. One has helped doctors talk with deaf patients; the other has helped deaf people entering the shelter ask questions about services they're receiving.
As if the evacuation wasn't overwhelming enough, Taylor said both he and his wife had a hard time figuring out what was going on in their first days at the shelter. Volunteer interpreters have worked there since it opened, but the pair was sometimes overwhelmed.
"Where are the lines for FEMA?" Taylor signed. "For Social Security? I would have been lost without this help."
Some of the stories of the 20 deaf evacuees at Kelly could have ended in tragedy without DeafLink's help, he added.
A 16-year-old girl went three days without immunizations against diseases such as hepatitis because she was unaware they were being offered. Another didn't eat during his first days in the shelter because he thought people had to pay for the meals.
DeafLink is a for-profit business that provides service to almost 300 clients, among them Goodwill, University Hospital, ReMax real estate and the San Antonio Police Department. But Chiodo said she didn't think twice about providing services for free.
Working with telecom vendors TimeWarner Cable and SBC Communications Inc., the company connected services in a Dallas shelter Thursday and at Houston's Astrodome the week before. At least 150 deaf people are believed to be in the Houston shelter.
"We just had to be there," Chiodo said. "This is what we're about. My shareholders understood that."
Privately held DeafLink's backers include entrepreneurs and established companies from around the country, she said.
The deaf people in the Kelly shelter now are working to figure out where they can stay and work. Several, including the Brown and Taylor family, are splitting time between Kelly and the Methodist Mission Home, which is better equipped to help the hearing-impaired.
Until they had access to the online interpreters, it would have been difficult to take those steps, said deaf evacuee Bruce Johnson, 53.
"It's been wonderful to be able to communicate something as simple as saying that I have a headache," Johnson said, speaking through an interpreter. "Until we got DeafLink, I couldn't even talk to a doctor."