Skip to content Northern Virginia Resource Center for Deaf & Hard of Hearing Persons

 

 

News 4 WTOP
By Kristi King | @KingWTOP

WASHINGTON — Contacting 911 via text is ideal for the hearing impaired, but being deaf can make it more difficult to learn when something new like that is available.

Frederick County Emergency Communications is working with the Maryland School for the Deaf and its emergency management division to introduce its roughly 230 students and staff to the text to 911 system.

“We’re starting with the employees and working with them to be able to test the 911 and for them to be able to see how it works,” said Kristie Dutrow, administrator of Quality Assurance and Training for Frederick County Emergency Communications.

Frederick County’s text to 911 program began in 2013. It expanded to include AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile about a year ago. But Dutrow said the message about its availability wasn’t getting to some of the people most in need of the information.

Read more  . . .  Frederick County Emergency Communications