Sunday, August 31, 2008

Help During the Hurricane

When you watch the news coverage of hurricane Gustav, you may see Shari Bernius. She’s administrator of the Deaf Action Center, an agency of the Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans. Both of her parents were deaf and she understands the difficulties of those who are deaf during emergencies. Bernius signed many news conferences during Hurricane Katrina and now her skills are being called upon again. Her job is critical because there is no closed captioning for these emergency weather announcements, leaving the deaf community no way of knowing what's going on apart from the work of interpreters like Bernius.