Irma Sign Language Interpreter Warned Of Monsters, Pizza, Bears

BRADENTON, FL — An interpreter for the deaf sent some mixed signals — gibberish, actually, according to a news video site that delivers news using American Sign Language — during a Sept. 8 emergency briefing about a mandatory evacuation order in Manatee County ahead of Hurricane Irma. What should have been an ominous warning about the then-Category 5 hurricane bearing down on Florida instead included references to “monsters” — Irma was that — but also “pizza” and the completely nonsensical “help you at that time to use bear big,” according to reports.

As for the rest of the news conference, the information conveyed by the interpreter was incoherent and incomplete, experts said. The interpreter’s blunders were the subject of viral internet hilarity, but were deadly serious and put deaf residents’ lives at risk, they said.

County officials usually use VisCom, a professional service, but asked Marshall Greene, a lifeguard for Manatee County, to step in. He has a deaf brother, according to the Daily Moth, which uses ASL in videos covering trending stories and other news of interest. (For more hurricane updates and news from Bradenton, sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters. If you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.)

VisCom owner Charlene McCarthy was horrified when she saw the news conference delivering dire monster, bear and pizza warnings, and said her company was never contacted.

“It was horribly unnerving for me to watch that, knowing I could provide a qualified, certified interpreter,” she told WPTV.

Jason Hurdich, a well-known interpreter an Clemson University professor, told The Bradenton Herald Greene’s interpretations were “horrible and embarrassing,” and he couldn’t make out 95 percent of what Greene was saying. As with most languages, translating English to ASL is not exact, he said.

Because the speaker’s tone of voice can’t be heard, “we heavily depend on facial expressions depending on grammar,” he told the Bradenton newspaper. “You have to follow their facial expressions. You can see the degree of intensity.”

You can watch the video below.

Photo via YouTube