Natural disasters such as cyclones, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and accidents such as fire accidents and etc are always unexpected. Such situations will be devastating to all of our lives. Although Emergency authorities help the citizens by making mass calls to landlines in a geographic area, making mass calls to mobiles is a tough job because collecting contact numbers of cell phones is a tedious job.
But in today’s generation, most of the people chose smartphones over landlines. And with the increasing apps and features of do not disturb mode on our mobiles, you may not get an alert message from your friends, neighbors or emergency authorities and might become a victim of a tragedy.
If you are a person who avoids the disturbing sounds of unnecessary text messages, email pop-up by turning on do not disturb mode or mute your iPhone or iPad, then you need to know that with only a few modifications on your iPhone or iPad, you can avoid unnecessary notifications an get the right emergency alert notifications.
Add more people to your favorite list
On an iPhone, you have an option to mark few contacts (generally family and close friends) as a favorite so that calling and sending a message to them will be easy without the need to search their number from your contact list. You can set the do not disturb mode in such a way that these favorite people can pass through the do not disturb mode when turned on.
So, expanding this list by adding more contacts such as neighbors and locals can make them reach out to you when an emergency strikes.
The iPhone users also have another advantage. The Do Not Disturb has an option which allows a contact to pass through DND mode after a certain number of calls in a three-minute period. So, if a person doesn’t pick the phone after the first call, there is a chance that he/her might have turned on the DND mode on their iPhone. Call them more than twice to pass your call through the Do not disturb mode.
Turn On Emergency Bypass
If you don’t want to clutter your Favorites list, with unnecessary contacts then there’s another way to allow a contact to break through Do Not Disturb. To enable this feature, first, go to a specific contact’s profile and then tap the Edit option and on the Ringtone. You will find an option called Emergency Bypass at the top the Ringtone screen. Turning on this feature will allow all the calls and messages from this contact makes your phone ring or vibrate regardless of your Do Not Disturb setting.
Sign Up for Nixle
Nixle is a service that many community agencies such as local police department and county emergency management offices use in the U.S. in order to send out emergency alerts on an opt-in basis. Text your zip code to 888777, to use Nixle.
Nixle sends all sorts of alerts including low-priority advisories from the local and nearby agencies. You can even customize the alerts you receive to avoid unnecessary alerts. Log into the Nixle website and add the specific agencies you want to hear the alerts from.
So adding Nixle’s text address to your contact list and enabling the Emergency Bypass to that contact will keep you updated about the emergency alerts near your locale by bypassing the Do Not Disturb mode.
Are you going to use these features? Did you find these tips useful? Do let us know in the comments below!
