Multilingual Wireless Emergency Alerts

The FCC requires wireless providers that participate in Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) to support 18 template WEA messages in the 13 most commonly spoken languages in the United States, as well as English and American Sign Language (ASL).  The templates allow alerting authorities to inform people with limited English proficiency about an ongoing emergency.  Wireless providers that participate in WEA are required to support template-based multilingual alerts within 30 months after the Bureau publishes its January 2025 Report and Order in the Federal Register.  These templates are optional for use by alerting authorities.

The templates are required to be pre-installed and stored on WEA-capable mobile devices. When an alerting authority chooses to send a multilingual alert, the WEA-capable mobile device must display the relevant template in the device’s default language, if available.  If the device’s default language is not among those supported by templates, the WEA-capable device must present the English version of the alert.

The 18 templates address the following types of alerts: tornado emergency, tornado warning, flash flood emergency, flash flood warning, severe thunderstorm, snow squall, dust storm, hurricane, storm surge, extreme wind, test alert, fire, tsunami, earthquake, boil water, avalanche, hazardous materials, and 911 outage.  The language of the written templates that wireless providers participating in WEA must support is provided here.  The pre-scripted video templates that wireless providers participating in WEA must support are provided at: www.fcc.gov/WirelessEmergencyAlert-Templates-ASL.

The written supported with templates are: Arabic, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, German, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese.  ASL alerts are supported with video templates. When a multilingual alert is sent, the alert in the device’s default language is required to appear first and must be followed by the English version of the alert.

Alerting authorities can customize the templates for the written languages to include event-specific information.  The templates allow alerting authorities to insert 1) the name of the authority sending the alert; 2) the location or geographic area pertaining to the emergency; 3) the time that the emergency is expected to end; and 4) an optional URL.

For additional information, please contact Joshua Gehret at Joshua.Gehret@fcc.gov.  People who use videophones and are fluent in ASL may call the FCC’s ASL Consumer Support Line at (844) 432-2275 (videophone).

Resources

Updated:
Wednesday, January 8, 2025