Ms. Motz added that she expected companies to make a big push in coming months to emphasize cellphones' emergency value.
2. Load up your cellphone with emergency numbers.
Finally, note that many glovebox users find that having a cellphone for emergency use is like keeping a bowl of chocolates on the kitchen table "for guests".
Shortly after I got the car, my mom lent me her brick of a cellphone for "emergencies only".
Studies, with code names like Dark Angel, have focused on whether cellphone towers, emergency-service communications and hospital systems could be brought down, to sow chaos.
First responders such as firemen, paramedics and ER nurses automatically check cellphones for emergency contacts.
Compounding the problem of cellphones during an emergency ("When Cellphone Service Fails," editorial, Aug. 20) is the woeful state of our pay telephones in the city.
"We all have emergencies now!" Before the cellphone age, non-emergency workers did not customarily carry around beepers in case of emergency unless they were drug dealers.
But the M.T.A. reversed course the next day after Mayor Bloomberg and Police Chief Raymond W. Kelly publicly questioned the shutdown and vouched for the benefits of cellphones in emergencies.
The other measures include creation of a special team of 300 airport officials to assist stranded passengers, and a new wireless communication system that would send information to cellphones during emergencies.
