People in need of emergency aid in Roane County can text 911 for help. However, officials still prefer people to call if it doesn’t jeopardize their safety.
“The best way is always going to be a phone call because that dispatcher listens for background noise, your tone of voice, all those things come into play,” said Tim Suter, chairman of the Roane County E-911 Board. “That’s the message we want to get out. Text to 911 is there, it works, but 911 still prefers a phone call.”
Suter provided a handout that also emphasized that message.
“Text to 9-1-1 should only be used in an emergency situation, when placing a call is not possible,” the handout said. “For instance, if the caller is deaf, hard-of-hearing, speech impaired, or when speaking out loud would put the caller in danger. Calling 911 is always better when it is safe to do so.”
Suter said Roane County E-911 has been able to accept text messages “for a long time,” but officials were apprehensive about making that widely known until recently.
“Our problem has always been that we didn’t have all the providers online,” he said. “We finally, I think 60 days ago, got the final provider online.”
The handout said cell phone users can text up to 140 characters to 911 in an emergency.
“If you can’t call and texting is your only option, do it,” Suter said. “We’ll get it and respond.”
Suter said he didn’t encounter any problems when he used the service.
“I tried it out during the storms,” he said. “The operator responded immediately, verified what I needed. It was a really smooth process.”
