Spanish-speaking population growth in the Charlotte region as a result of the National Weather Service

Millions of lives might be at stake due to a shift at the National Weather Service. Weather service will no longer translate weather notifications for non-native English speakers. Only Spanish-speaking people require the service.

According to census figures, the Hispanic population in the eight-county Charlotte area has grown by 50% since 2010, but Spanish isn’t the only language affected. Queen City News presented stunning footage of a guy stuck in his automobile during a storm in east Charlotte in January 2024.

In Spanish, his neighbors instructed him to drop his car window so they could come to his aid. At the time, The National Weather Service could send out essential notifications in Spanish to the neighbors, alerting them of storms and catastrophic flooding. They can’t now.

Ana Adams is employed by Charlotte’s Latin American Coalition, La COALICIÓN. She can only communicate in Spanish. She claims that she and her entire community would be impacted if she could not get the notifications in her tongue. “The first thing we need to do in an emergency is to be able to focus on your primary language,” Adams stated in Spanish.

Due to the expiration of its contract with its artificial intelligence supplier, the National Weather Service no longer offers translation services in Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, French, and Samoan. The decision coincides with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the head agency of NWS, undergoing funding cuts under President Donald Trump’s administration.

Jose Hernandez-Paris, the CEO of La COALICIÓN, stated, “I don’t understand the value of savings versus a life — someone’s life.” “I think it’s inevitable that someone will die because they didn’t know how to react to a particular weather situation if a large portion of the population is disconnected from that,” Hernandez-Paris said.

For further information, Queen City News contacted the Greenville-Spartanburg National Weather Service. They directed QCN to the national headquarters of NOAA. They claim that evaluation services have been “paused until further notice.” Because of the contract expiration, they will only provide those specifics for the time being.