The gap
A siren says something is wrong. It does not say what to do.
Outdoor warning sirens carry a tone. Reverse-911 reaches the numbers on file. Text alerts fit in 360 characters. Social media reaches whoever the feed decides to show. Each of these does one narrow job, and none of them can carry a human voice explaining, at length and as the situation changes, what a resident should actually do right now.
Add a second problem on top: a meaningful share of the people who most need those instructions do not receive them in a language they can act on quickly.
Sirens
A tone with no content. Indoors, in bad weather, or with headphones on, frequently unheard at all.
Text and reverse-911
Short, one-directional, and limited to contact records that are often stale or absent for renters and cell-only households.
Public address
Bounded by the property line and by whatever the ambient noise happens to be. One language at a time.
The instruction is the whole point.
Not that something happened — what to do, where to go, when it is over, and who to call. That takes a voice, and it takes minutes, not characters.
Language access
One speaker. Every language in the room.
Your public information officer speaks normally into a phone or a desk microphone. Residents open a link and choose the language they want to hear. Translation happens live, as the words are spoken — there is no separate broadcast to staff, no interpreter to schedule, and no second version of the message to keep in sync with the first.
The same channel serves a council meeting, a boil-water notice, a shelter-in-place order and a Fourth of July concert. It is the delivery layer, not a single-purpose alerting product.
- English
- Español
- Tiếng Việt
- 简体中文
- Tagalog
- 한국어
- العربية
- Русский
- Kreyòl ayisyen
- Português
- Français
- हिन्दी
Illustrative selection. The supported language list is set by the underlying translation service and changes over time — confirm current coverage against your jurisdiction's actual LEP profile before relying on it for a specific population.
Read this before citing compliance
Language access under Title VI, and effective-communication obligations under the ADA, are legal standards that depend on your jurisdiction, your population, your programs and your own written plan. CommunityCast can be one component of how an agency meets those obligations — it is not, on its own, a determination that you have met them.
We do not make compliance claims on your behalf and you should not repeat any to your council or board on the strength of this page. Have your counsel and your ADA/Title VI coordinator evaluate it against your language access plan before it goes in a procurement document.
Operation
Standing up a channel
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Create the channel
Set it up once. It stays available — a standing public channel for the jurisdiction, not something assembled during an incident when nobody has time to assemble anything.
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Publish the link
One URL and a QR code. It goes on the city website, on printed notices, on the back of utility bills, on signage at the EOC and at shelter sites, and into your existing alert templates. Residents open it in the browser they already have — there is nothing to install and no account to create.
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Speak
Anyone you have authorised can go live from a phone or a laptop. Residents hear it in the language they selected. Add designated speakers — a fire PIO, a translator, a department head — without changing the link the public already has.
Where it is used
Not only for emergencies
A channel that only gets used during a disaster is a channel nobody has open during a disaster. Routine use is what makes it work when it matters.
Emergency operations
Shelter-in-place, evacuation routing, boil-water notices, storm updates, all-clear. Continuous voice rather than one-shot alerts.
Public meetings
Council, commission and board meetings — heard clearly from the back row, from the overflow room, and from home, in the resident's own language.
Hearings and open houses
Rezoning, capital projects, budget hearings. Rooms where the acoustics are poor and the turnout is exactly the population you were required to reach.
Drills and exercises
Run the channel during tabletop and full-scale exercises so staff and residents both know what it sounds like before an incident.
Accessibility
Residents listen on their own phone through their own earbuds or hearing devices, at their own volume — no shared receiver to sign out, sanitise and return.
Community events
Parades, ceremonies, fireworks, outdoor concerts. Coverage that does not stop at the edge of the speaker throw or violate a noise ordinance.
Practical questions
What it needs and what it does not
| Requirement | CommunityCast |
|---|---|
| Hardware to purchase | None required. A phone or laptop with a microphone is sufficient; a desk or lapel mic improves quality. |
| Resident-side equipment | Their own smartphone. No receivers to buy, issue, sanitise or recover. |
| App install | None. Opens in the phone's browser from a link or QR code. |
| FCC licence | Not applicable — this is an internet stream, not a radio transmission. |
| Coverage area | Anywhere the resident has cellular or Wi-Fi data. Not bounded by transmitter range or property line. |
| Dependency | Requires working data service. It complements sirens and Wireless Emergency Alerts — it does not replace them, and should not be your only channel. |
| Translation | Live, per-listener language selection. Confirm current language coverage against your LEP profile. |
| Capacity | Scales with listeners rather than with hardware inventory. |
That data-service dependency is a real constraint and we would rather you hear it from us than discover it during an incident. Any responsible communications plan runs multiple independent channels; CommunityCast is intended to be the one that carries detail and language, alongside the ones that carry reach when infrastructure is degraded.
Set up a channel for your jurisdiction
Free to start. Stand one up, run it in your next exercise, and see how it behaves before it is ever needed in earnest.