The National Weather Service has quietly stopped providing translated weather alerts in Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, French, and Samoan. This is not just a bureaucratic pause, it’s a dangerous decision that could cost lives.

Weather doesn’t care what language you speak. Tornadoes, floods, and wildfires don’t wait for someone to find a translator. Everyone deserves equal access to life-saving information, especially in a country where nearly 68 million people speak a language other than English at home.

Imagine visiting family, traveling for work, or simply living in a place you call home, and missing a critical alert because it wasn’t in a language you understand.

This already happened.

In 2021, a Spanish-speaking family survived a deadly tornado only because they finally received a translated alert. It saved their lives.

The current “pause” in translations, reportedly due to a lapsed contract, is unacceptable. Budget cuts should never come at the expense of human safety. Language access isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity.

We demand the immediate restoration of translated weather alerts and a permanent commitment to multilingual access at the National Weather Service. Lives depend on it.