To text or not to text during emergencies

As part of National Preparedness Month, a group that promotes health and safety programs has launched an initiative to tell the public to use text messaging to communicate with friends and families immediately after an emergency or disaster before calling on the phone. But some telecommunications experts warn that might not be the best advice.

Safe America Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Marietta, Ga., kicked off its Text First, Talk Second campaign, saying texting is more efficient and during an emergency not everybody can use voice lines. "We need to become more reliant on texting," said Len Pagano, president and chief executive of the foundation. A person who texts has an 800-to-1 better chance of sending a message to someone in an emergency than using voice communications because a short message such as "imok," for I'm OK, requires 4 bytes using standard text messaging protocols, according to data from Robert Duncan, vice chancellor for research at the University of Missouri and a member of the foundation's volunteer advisory task force. But other telecommunication's experts said texting is not reliable during emergency situations and voice communication should be the first option, especially when calling 911.