Everybody needs emergency cash reserves for the unpleasant day when your expenses unexpectedly exceed your income. By stashing your reserves in the right place, you should ideally be able to fund your life – rent, food, transportation, utilities, and any other fixed expenses – for at least three months. The Washington Post has a few tips to keep inflation from eroding the value of your pot of emergency cash.
emergencies
Don't Dial 911 In Missouri
By 8.7.07
Dialing 911 in Missouri is like a game of Russian Roulette. The state’s public safety director recently warned that most Missouri counties can’t track a caller’s location and that 16% of counties can’t access 911 from any landline. The solution? Higher cellphone taxes:
Vonage Changes Your E911 Information To A Different Address, City
By 6.19.07
Each time Andru updates his address for his Vonage E911 profile, Vonage responds with a confirmation email listing the wrong address in the wrong city. Andru updated his address for the fifth time just days before needing an ambulance for his 3-year old. Thankfully, the 911 operator had the correct address, but Andru had an email waiting for him when he returned from the hospital.
Yup, confirmation from Vonage that they accepted our E-911 address settings, again, set to the wrong address. Basically, this means that if we had to dial 911 one day later, paramedics would have had to have been rerouted from the address they were provided when we called in, which is over 10 minutes away, to our home – all thanks to Vonage and their incompetence in designing a fool-proof E-911 system.
VOIP still has a long way to go before it can be relied on for 911 service. In an emergency, the best way to get ahold of 911 is through an old fashioned landline. — CAREY GREENBERG-BERGER
Increased Call Volume Following Virginia Tech Tragedy Caused Wireless Outage
By 4.18.07
The inability of students and others at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., to make cell phone calls during the April 16 shooting tragedy added to the chaos surrounding the events of the day, students and others have reported in media interviews.
According to the article, Verizon is the only wireless carrier admitting to call blocking during the emergency. Cingular claims to have experienced higher volumes but no service interruptions.
