Focus at Four: Emergency Services on service outage safety
BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) – AT&T is reimbursing customers for last week’s network outage.
Tens of thousands of customers, including those in the Brazos Valley, dealt with error messages or no service connection.
With emergency preparedness at the forefront of that conversation, the Brazos County Emergency Management Coordinator, Michele Meade, said emergency preparedness is not just for outages, but for natural disasters as well.
Meade said Wi-Fi and landlines could be a good alternative to cell connection, in addition to social media.
“There’s a way you can use social media to reach out to people if you’re trying to reach them or trying to get help in a certain situation. What we don’t want them to do is call 911 when their phone isn’t working,” she said.
Meade pressed that while preparedness is important, contacting emergency services is for emergency purposes only, and not network connection loss.
She also says paper documentation, while not at the height of its popularity, is still useful.
“We’ve gotten away from having a lot of paper documentation at our homes. However, having that list of critical phone numbers when your phone’s not working, or any kind of legal papers that you might need, any kind of insurance papers that you might need. It’s always a good idea to have paper copies of those as backup at your house,” Meade said.
She also stressed the importance of practicing preparedness.
“A form of ID, have your Social Security cards. You may have again, papers, and important documents that if you keep on your phone you’re not able to access them. Those are the kinds of things that you want in a preparedness kit. Along with the normal things like food and water,” said Meade.
For more information on Brazos County preparedness services, click here.
