share via: OK, here's the scenario: A storm plows through your hometown, knocking out the electricity. Your lights go out, and with it your Wi-Fi. Your laptop, still charged, is without Internet. The local cell networks are both degraded by the weather and instantly overloaded as thousands of people around you call their friends and family to ask, "Hey, did your power just go out? You OK?" Your phone is getting service, but just barely. Calls are patchy. 3G and 4G Internet aren't working at all, so neither are your apps. All you can depend on is the most resilient, and limited, feature of your cell service: Text messages. The Washington Post has a great post up about how to use Twitter, which was originally a text-based service, without Internet access. But there's a lot more you can do with SMS  --  from Twitter and Facebook to email and search. Here's how to access the Internet without the Internet: You can still use Google even if all you have is SMS access. Just add 466453 (GOOGLE) to your phonebook, then text to it as if you're searching. Courtesy of BuzzFeed Here's something you may not have known about your phone number: It has an e-mail address. Almost every carrier operates what's called an e-mail gateway, meaning that you can send and receive e-mails via text. Here's how to figure out your phone's e-mail address: If you're on Verizon , it's yournumber@vtext.com (as in 5551234567@vtext.com), or if that doesn't work, yournumber@vzwpix.com