Emergency Communication Networks

A Division of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety

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Public Alert System (IPAWS)

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What's New?

These Three Numbers Can Save a Life

Man Sitting at Table Alone When you're truly in the middle of a crisis, it's hard to remember anything, let alone a 10-digit phone number. That's why the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) established a new phone number, 988, to connect people in mental health crises to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The new three-digit number will be much easier to remember and dial quickly, getting help that much faster to anyone considering suicide.

Learn more about the rollout, the change for two Minnesota area codes, and how it may affect you in our latest blog.

How and Why to Avoid an Accidental 911 Call

Smartphone

If there's one thing we've learned about smart phones, it's that touch screens can be…well, touchy. Like when it's in your pocket and you somehow end up dialing whoever is at the top of your contacts list. Most of these accidents are harmless. But more and more, people are unknowingly pressing just the right combination of buttons to activate the built-in SOS function on their phones, resulting in an accidental call to 911.

Learn how and why to avoid such a scenario in our latest blog.

Your Lifeline in an Emergency

Woman looking at her phone during a wireless emergency alert
You’ve probably received at least one emergency alert over this past year, whether it was about curfews during last summer's civil unrest or about staying safe from severe weather such as flash flooding or blizzards. The fact is that cell phones have become an important tool to communicate safety information to large parts of the public.

Read our blog to find out who these wireless emergency alerts come from, what they mean, and what you should do when you receive one.

Text-to-911 Turns Three

Picture of someone texting 911
Picture it: You’re caught up in an emergency, but you can’t talk on the phone. So you use Text-to-911. Hoping to give as much detail as possible about your situation, you attach a photo to your text. But that could ruin your chances of getting help.

Right now, the Text-to-911 system is not able to accept emojis, photos, videos or graphics. So if you send an emergency text to 911 with any of those in it, you run the risk of your text getting bounced out of the system and never answered.

Learn more in our blog.