Wednesday, October 15, 2014

How to communicate when the world goes silent

How to communicate when the world goes silent
So how would you communicate with your family or get help if communications go down?
So if you found yourself in the middle of a wide-scale disaster such as a hurricane or other catastrophe and you had no government coming to help for a while, how would you communicate with your family or others? 
What if the power grid went down?
You won’t be able to rely on your cell phone. 
There are alternatives, however.
I’ll go over the basics of some emergency communication methods but if you want more detail, check out Personal Emergency Communications: Staying in Touch Post-Disaster: Technology, Gear and Planning.
During many recent events, cell phone service wasn’t an option for many for days. 
The system became seriously overloaded on 9/11 so calls wouldn’t go through, 70% of the towers went down during Katrina and were down for days, and most areas haven’t been adequately improved across the US.Short-term emergencies have shown the limitations of using cell phones to coordinate with each other. 
Even if the towers are operational, they can’t handle the added traffic of millions of people trying to get a hold of loved ones – or help. 
Ever had trouble calling your mother on the morning of Mother’s Day?
These won’t be isolated events. 
Don’t think that because you live in a large metropolitan area that you’re safer. 
A quick look at some of the things that went on during Hurricane Sandy in NY will show that the government has a lot to deal with in addition to just trying to get your cell phone service back up so even though that was a pretty short-term event, it caused a lot of problems.

No comments: