Tampa, Florida – Every September, people around the world come together to honor the deaf and hard of hearing during Deaf Awareness Month.
One hundred and fifty thousand people in the Sunshine State are hard of hearing or deaf. In the Tampa Bay region alone, about 340,000 call this place home.
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That is why a single individual and his group are attempting to make various accessibility aids available in public spaces such as hotels, stadiums, beaches, and theme parks.
Randy Dean, who came all the way from California to attend an A-D-A event in St. Pete this summer, had the chance to meet with local leaders, company owners, and even police officers. He showed them how SeaMe Systems, a company he had founded, could help them.
“SeaMe Systems is a consultative service and business, and our focus is to address the accessibility needs [of] disadvantaged communities,” Dean stated to FOX 13.
The inspiration for his business came from his own life. In addition to two of Randy’s grandkids, Randy “Steven” Dean, Jr. and Ashli Dean are all hard of hearing.
“As they grew up, I found that a lot of deaf people don’t or are reluctant to go to beaches or public spaces because they don’t have access to information in real time like many other people, especially in emergency situations,” according to Dean.
This is why Randy came up with the idea for BEELS, or the Beach Emergency Evacuation Lights System.
“The BEELS system is designed to provide emergency alert notifications in places like beaches, parks, lakes, public lakes, amusement parks,” said Dean. “It’s designed to operate with a combination of lights and audio speakers, and the lights are programmed so that they can actually flash in their set sequence so that deaf people can understand what is happening in real time and then evacuate.”
These can particularly handy when faced with dangers such as rip currents or shark sightings. An endorsement and recommendation of BEELS to all California counties came from the state’s Office of Emergency Services.
Still, he wasn’t finished helping the DHH community. Additional accessibility solutions, such as Video Remote Interpreting (VRI), were subsequently developed by him.
“Most hotels that I’ve gone to don’t have anything in place to really assist them with addressing the needs and communicating with deaf and hard of hearing people,” Dean added. “Even law enforcement doesn’t always have those tools available to have an interpreter immediately available.”
After both tools saw great success in Los Angeles County and across California, Randy set his eyes on expanding to other states where they could be beneficial, like Florida.
He specifically set his eye on Orlando and Tampa.
“Tampa Bay is part of a major tourism, location, very famous and popular destination for a lot of guests who come from out of state and out of the out of the guests who come, a lot of them are deaf as well,” said Dean.
To get the ball rolling, he recruited a longtime friend and Clearwater Psychologist, Tracy Daniels, to represent the SeaMe team in the Sunshine State.
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“We know the things that are set up for people that are blind or in a wheelchair, but this is an invisible disability where you’re only going to know it if you start talking to them,” Daniels stressed. “To me, that’s why it’s so important, because currently, I believe they’re not getting the services that they need, because there’s not a need that’s being pushed forth and that’s why it’s important that we begin to target organizations to be able to set up these things.”
As the duo works to get these services on Florida beaches, college campuses, amusement parks and businesses, they’ve also earned the support of leaders in the Deaf and hard of hearing community, like Calvin Britt, president of the Florida Association of the Deaf.
“I was getting ready to, you know, roll up my sleeves and get this to the state of Florida,” Britt told FOX 13. “That’s something that, you know, we look forward to … for every beach in the state of Florida to have something like that.”
Calvin advised that it will be a lengthy process to get BEELS on beaches, but he’s already got a plan in mind.
“We’re looking at Saint Augustine as the first location for this,” Britt added. “Just to, you know, show the success of and how effective it is and then use that to present to other entities.”
He says it’s his duty…to improve accessibility – and a resource like this could be vital.
Randy has since worked on getting interactive kiosks in public spaces, as well.
They use AI technology and video recordings to provide info like directions, schedules, or amenities at hotels to people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
