Using your smartphone to help prepare for emergency

JACKSON, Tenn. — Is your family prepared for an emergency?

One company is working to make sure families across West Tennessee get ready and stay ready.

September is National Preparedness Month, a time to think about your family emergency preparedness plan.

With this educational “How To,” AT&T experts highlight the importance of assembling the tools and knowledge you may need in a moments notice.

Vice President and General Manager of AT&T’s Southeast Retail Organization, Cara Fields, says having a communication plan is critically important.

“One of which is, in preparedness, to download and back important information ahead of time, and that includes, you know, downloading your favorite maps, your favorite news channels, and also backing up important documents to iClouds,” Fields said. “You’ll be surprised, in terms of working in emergency situations, you wanna make sure that things that are vital to you, such as life insurance, medical papers, etc. are able to be easily accessed from your device, and so you can upload them to the Cloud, as well as take pictures of those on your phone.”

In addition to those initial steps, Fields says making sure your devices are powered and having vital phone numbers stored somewhere safe could be what saves your life.

Experts encourage everyone to not solely rely on memory when disaster strikes.

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