Imagine you are flipping the channels on television and you recognize your neighborhood on the news. A fire or law enforcement official is warning residents of an approaching wildfire. Now imagine you don’t speak English very well. You think you can pick out some words like “evacuation,” but otherwise you can’t tell how close the fire is to you or if you are being asked to go now or to just be prepared to evacuate.

According to the United States Census, more than 1 million Hispanics reside in San Diego County. If you are one of the approximately 350,000 people who only speak Spanish in San Diego County, you can now go to the County’s new, free Spanish SD Emergency App or website for emergency information in Spanish. The new app and website were just launched by the San Diego County Office of Emergency Services. The new offerings mirror the County’s successful English-version app, which has been downloaded 170,000 times, and the SDCountyEmergency.com site which was viewed 2.4 million times during the May 2014 Wildfires.

The new, accompanying Spanish language versions of ReadySanDiego, SDCountyEmergency and the SDCountyRecovery websites are also available at ListoSanDiego.org and offer the same preparedness tips and recovery resources as the English sites. The Spanish SD Emergency app can be downloaded from the Apple or Google Play stores at no cost via links on ListoSanDiego.org. Just choose between English or Spanish when first opening the app. The language can also be changed at any time through the app’s settings. During regional emergencies or potential large scale disasters, the County’s Emergency Operations Center will send messages to the site and app with critical information pertaining to the emergency incident, including evacuation routes, shelter information and major road closures.

The Office of Emergency Services has also upgraded its SDCountyEmergency website and app to benefit hearing and vision impaired residents. Emergency messages are available in American Sign Language in video accompanied by audio and the English and Spanish versions of the app offer customizable text size.