An Iowa 911 Call Center is the First to Accept Text Messages
hlp my hous on fir sav me This may come as a surprise to some (myself included), but despite the current ubiquity of texting, there’s still at least one place that won’t accept your texts: your local 911 center. Unless you live in Black Hawk County in Waterloo, Iowa, that is. Starting this week, the county’s emergency call center will be the first 911 center in the country to accept text messages sent to 911 in lieu of a phone call. According to Black Hawk County police chief Thomas Jennings, the upgrade will first and foremost benefit the deaf and hard-of-hearing, but it could also be of help to kidnap victims who can’t afford to draw their captor’s attention by calling. In addition, I can imagine 911 texting coming in handy in particularly loud locations, or where the signal is weak. But regardless of how vital (or not) this ends up being,...