Hunt County has been included in a program which allows many local residents to text an emergency message to 911 dispatch.
Both the Hunt County Sheriff’s Office and the Greenville and Commerce police departments are able to utilize the “Text to 911” service from the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG), which was introduced during a program Wednesday afternoon at the Hunt County Criminal Justice Center.
“It is exciting to provide this service in Hunt County,” said Kelly Williams, 911 Operations Specialist with the NCTCOG.
Text to 911 is the ability to send a text message to a 911 dispatcher from a mobile phone or other handheld device. It is designed to be used when making a voice call to 911 is not possible, or would be unsafe.
One example given during Thursday’s presentation was of a girl trapped in a house, hiding under her bed, while an intruder lurks nearby.
Christy Williams, Chief 911 Program Officer, explained the service is currently available to customers of the four major wireless carriers in the United States — Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T.
She said there are some limitations with the service.
“We don’t know where the texter is, so we need the texter to tell us their location,” Williams said.
Those sending the messages also need to use plain English and avoid abbreviations, emoticons or other symbols. The service only accepts texts, no photos, and the person sending the text must send it only to the 911 dispatch and not to multiple locations.
“But anything is better than nothing,” Williams added.
Representatives with the North Central Texas Council of Governments have been in the area for the past month, setting up Text to 911, which has passed all the tests with flying colors.
“So, now we are going to announce to the public that the service is available in your area,” Williams said.
Wednesday’s presentation was the start of a public relations effort, designed to make the public aware of the service. Williams said there are 40 of the 911 call centers currently operating in locations surrounding the Dallas/Fort Metroplex.
“And we get about 20 calls a month from all of those,” Williams noted.
The slogan for the campaign is “911: Call If You Can, Text If You Can’t” and features messages delivered via social media sites and YouTube videos.