Cell phones can be invaluable during a hurricane

Need to know how friends or family are doing when a hurricane strikes? Have a situation that needs to be brought to the attention of emergency personnel?

With traditional telephone service likely to be down for some time when a storm strikes, cellular service can be a valuable asset. The following offers ideas on how and when to use your cell phone in event of a hurricane:

Consumer Tips

¸ Program all of your emergency contact numbers into your cell phone, including the police department, fire station and hospital, as well as your family members.

¸ Be sure you have a “Hurricane Phone” — a traditional wireline phone available in case your power goes out. The base of a cordless phone requires commercial electricity and will not work in a power outage.

¸ Have a family communications plan in place. Designate someone out of the area as a central contact, and let family members know who to contact if they become separated.

¸ Keep your wireless phone batteries charged at all times. Have an alternate plan to recharge your battery in case of power outages (i.e. charging via your car charger, extra cell phone batteries, use of a disposable cell phone battery).

¸ Keep your wireless phone dry. The biggest threat to your device during a hurricane is water, so keep your equipment safe from the elements.

¸ Forward your home number to your wireless number in the event of an evacuation. Since call forwarding is based out of the telephone central office, you will get incoming calls from your landline phone, even if your local service is disrupted.

¸ Use your wireless phone to access weather information. Many homes lose power during severe weather. If you have a wireless phone that provides access to the Internet, you can watch the Weather Channel and its new Severe Weather Mode service though My-Cast Weather.

¸ If you have a camera phone, take, store and send photos of damaged property to your insurance company.

Maximizing service

¸ Keep in mind that during an emergency, many people are trying to use their cell phones at the same time when compared to normal calling activity. The increased calling volume may create network congestion. Network congestion can cause “fast busy” signals from wireless phones during times of heavy wireless phone usage, such as during an emergency. Customers may even receive a message that says, “Your call cannot be completed at this time.” If you hear this message, simply hang up, wait a few seconds and retry.

¸ During periods of high calling volume, you also may experience a slow dial tone on your wireline phone. If you don’t hear a dial tone immediately, wait a few seconds or hang up and try later.

¸ Try wireless short/text messaging service (SMS). Often times during an emergency situation, text messages will go through quicker than voice calls. More than 95 percent of AT&T phones are SMS capable. Also, if you have a wireless data device such as a BlackBerry, customers can use its messaging capabilities to communicate.

¸ Keep nonemergency calls to a minimum and limit calls to the most important ones.