Hamilton County First in State to Implement Text-to-911

If you need help from first responders and can’t talk, you can now text 911, officials said Thursday.

Hamilton County becomes the first in the state to launch the county-wide 911 texting capability.

“[This] has the capacity to save lives literally, as our first responders will be able to respond to emergencies quickly,” said Hamilton County mayor Jim Coppinger, in a press conference on Thursday.

Senator Todd Gardenhire was a strong advocate of the new measure.

“I have a little bit of an extra motivation,” he said during a press conference on Thursday.

Gardenhire is also hard of hearing. If this creates better access to first responders?

“I’m all for it,” he said.

Tips for Text-to-911 in an emergency:

Providing location information and nature of the emergency in the first text message is imperative
Keep text messages simple, brief, and concise
Service is available only in English at this time
Texts cannot include emoji’s, photos, videos, or other multimedia
Texts sent to more than one recipient will not go through

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.