Text-to-911 Video Description
Ken, a white middle-aged man sits in front of glowing blue lights. He’s wearing a shirt with bold letters: GEEK.
He signs ASL.
Transcript:
Emergency! Need call 911 but internet is down? VRS not available? SEND TEXT MESSAGE TO 911!
Description:
One Deaf Geek Logo appears, a hand signing “deaf” and pushing up thick eye glasses, appearing to be made of a motherboard material. Below in red reads, “Text to 9-1-1.” Ken continues.
Transcript:
If your internet is down or poor cellular signal, or your VRS is not available, and you have an emergency—don’t forget -- you can use your mobile phone to text 911.
Just open your text messages, type phone number 911 as the recipient, and send a message explaining your emergency. Here's a demo video of what it looks like.
Description:
Next to Ken, text appears, “How to Text 911.” A phone screen shows a text message being sent to the number “911.” Then the following conversation ensues:
>Caller: There is a fire in the trash can parking lot.
>>911 Operator: Dallas 9-1-1, what’s the address of the emergency?
>Caller: Park and ride mockingbird station. Address is 4400 worcola st.
>>911 Operator: How big is the fire?
>Caller: Small. It looks like it just started.
>>911 Operator: Are flames visible or just smoke?
>Caller: Little flame at the bottom. Little smoke.
>>911 Operator: Is anyone in danger?
>Caller: No.
>>911 Operator: Are there homes, buildings, or power lines nearby?
>Caller: No. Just trash can by itself.
>>911 Operator: Thank you. Fire units are on the way. If anything changes or the fire spread, text us back immediately.
Ken continues.
Transcript:
This part is important. Before you rely on text to 911, you should check whether Text-to-911 is available in your area. Only about 60% of 911 call centers in the U.S. support Text-to-911 services. You can see many areas have this service. Mainland. Hawaii. Alaska. Puerto Rico.
Description:
Text appears next to Ken. “Available Areas.” A map of the mainland US showing the majority in green as available with text to 911 and a little over ⅓ of the area in grey, unavailable with text to 911, noteably all of New Mexico and much of the southeastern states. Hawaii appears with almost all in green, available with text to 911. Alaska, with only a couple of small areas in green, meaning almost no areas have text to 911 available, Puerto Rico, with the entire island appearing to be in green, meaning text to 911 is available. Ken continues.
Transcript:
How do you check? It’s easy. Go to text911.info and enter your address. Make sure you check both your home and your work address, so you’re prepared in the future.
Description:
Next, the text “text911.info” is on screen, then “How to Check.” Next, a screenshot of the website, showing “Check if text to 911 is available in your area” along with a search box to enter your city or country. A map of the mainland US is shown below. A few cities are tested: Dallas, Texas: Yes. Los Angeles, California: Yes. San Francisco, California: Yes. New York City: Yes. (But easy to notice Newark on the map is grey/white, meaning text to 911 is not available there.) Miami, Florida: No.
Ken continues.
Transcript:
What’s really cool and good news is that when 911 receives your text message, they also receive your GPS coordinates.
Description:
Text appears: “GPS Information.” An image showing a GPS location of an incoming 911 call.
Transcript:
I personally verified this with my local 911 call center before making this video. Knowing they can see my location in an emergency, which is so important to me. I'm happy to know that. I don't know if that means this also applies to all 911 call centers in US so I can't guarantee that. Please share this video with your friends and family— deaf or hearing, it doesn’t matter.
This information can help everyone. Thank you for watching One Deaf Geek.
Description:
The text “Please Share” is on the screen next to Ken as he signs off. The One Deaf Geek Logo appears again.