All counties and Public Safety Answering Points in the state of Washington can now accept Text-to-911.
“The standard for Text-to-911 in Washington and nationally is: ‘Call if you can, text if you can’t,’ said Adam Wasserman, State 911 Coordinator. “A voice call to 911 will get help moving faster than a text message, but use the method that keeps you, as the caller, safest.”
All 911 centers in Washington have made the necessary changes to their call handling equipment and can receive and respond to requests for assistance that arrive via text messages. The State 911 Office is currently working with the statewide 911 call delivery network contractor to perform the necessary upgrades to enable delivery of Real-Time Text messaging –which should be available to the 911 call centers beginning in Q4 2023. As it is now, standard “SMS text messages” arrive almost immediately after the person hits “send,” but the entire message arrives at once. With Real-Time Text (RTT) technology, each character arrives as the person types it into their phone.