Communications Basics
We had an earthquake here a couple of years back. It wasn't really big... a 7.3 on the Richter scale. We really do not have very many big earthquakes. Tsunami is more our game. But our Civil Defense is aware that emergencies await us, and they test sirens once a month, and we have the normal emergency TV and radio net. When the earthquake came, everything went out the window. That is, just about nothing worked.
Of course the sirens were of not of any use. They do not turn them on for an earthquake. Earthquakes are sort of obvious. First to go, in the chain of decreasing communications, were the TV stations. Power went down, so if they were on the air, which it turns out they were not, no one could listen to them anyway. The radio stations went down at the same time. Only one returned to the air with a functioning emergency generator. And guess what? Civil Defense did not have a direct line to them. You could hear the DJ on the air saying, "If anyone in Civil Defense is listening, PLEASE CALL US and tell us what is going on, so we can tell everyone." Never happened. It was not until power went back on, hours later, that the emergency radio network started functioning.
Oddly, the land lines stopped operating when power went down. I still do not know why. Cell phones were the last to go, about a half hour later. That is reverse of what is supposed to happen. Land lines are supposed to work in an emergency, and cells are supposed to wink out quickly. In any event, the phones were totally gone in half an hour.
It was very, very quiet.
No electricity, no phones, no radio. Well, a little radio. We could still get broadcasts from a town a hundred and fifty miles away. Of course they had NO idea what was happening where we were, so that was of no practical help. But the music was nice.
This was for an event that took no lives, caused only a few medium-level injuries, and not that much structural damage to most buildings. A couple of masonry buildings had a wall missing. There were cracks in some walls. No highway damage whatsoever.
The moral of my story is pretty obvious: do not count on official emergency communications during an emergency. Maybe systems will stay up and work like they are supposed to. Maybe they won't. My stance is to prepare for both scenarios.
Systems Normal
Radio. All the government agencies say that your having an emergency radio is a first priority. They want to be able to tell you about the extent of the emergency. They want to be able to tell you if you should evacuate, or stay where you are. They might have information about what highways are open or closed. They may tell you when the National Guard will arrive, and what you will be required to do when they show up. There are some good reasons to have a radio. It's very useful to know what's going on.
One of the primary sources of emergency news is the NOAA weather radio band run by the National Weather Service. This gives you access to the latest severe weather alerts. There are also U.S. Emergency All Hazards, and Emergency Alert System (EAS) weather bulletins, warnings, & forecasts.
You can get radios that will monitor all of the above and give you both audio and visual alert signals when a warning comes in. One is on sale currently at Amazon for $33.99 called the Oregon Scientific Portable Weather Radio
. But that is just one of a whole lot of radios to choose from. They have the official Red Cross emergency radio with crank power
and a place to recharge your cell phone and bands to monitor TV news and and emergency light and just about everything except a pony. There are other radios configured other ways. One should be right for you.
If you want something with extraordinary power, check out the radios at Nitro-Pak
Phones. You probably have a cell phone. You probably do not have a land line. In most circumstances, cell phones will probably not work as long as the land lines. You could consider having both. We do. On the other hand, if you are one of those holdouts that do not like cell phones and don't want to get one, there's a middle road you might consider.
There are pay-as-you-go types that can cost about $6 a month for access. You buy minutes. You do not have to use those minutes until you want to. You could keep them all for an emergency, or use a few on those occasions when you are away from home and could really benefit by talking to someone at home. That is what we do. We probably use 10 minutes a month for non-emergency but important purposes. One dollar's worth. It combines the convenience of a cell phone without the horrendous cost of a plan that you are locked into for years at a time. The phone costs about $20. Wally Mart has them.
But the secret is to give no one except your immediate family the cell number. That way you have no incoming calls and you are not at everyone's mercy. And you do not turn it on unless you leave the house. It is for emergencies only... and the occasional 'should I get more peanut butter' call you initiate when you're out.
It is essential to get into the habit of turning it on when you go out. Every single time. This is an emergency warning system that is very likely to be of good use during the first few minutes of an emergency. Getting that hurried call from your loved one telling you to head home NOW could be pretty much priceless.
If you have a landline, chances are it will not work during an emergency. While it is true that the phone power is separate from your electric power, most phones have electronic features that do not work unless they are also plugged into a working electrical socket. Look at yours. If there is an adapter that is plugged into the wall in addition to your phone line cord, your phone will not work when the lights go out.
The only way around that is to have one of those old fashioned simple phones that just plug into the phone jack on the wall, and have no adapter. They are still around. My Wally Mart had one. And they are very inexpensive... about $15. Very cheap insurance.
2-Way Handheld Radios. Eventually, all phones will go out, if the crisis is severe. What then? You can provide for communications between you and your housemates with handheld 2-way radios. Then you can talk to each other over a variety of channels as long as you can power them, which can be done with regular batteries, rechargeable batteries, or a car cigarette lighter, or a number of other ways. Depends on the model of radio you get.
The range you can talk over also varies greatly. Very inexpensive ones may work only a half or quarter of a mile. Medium range radios may go 2 to 4 miles. Better ones might go 6 to 10. Some promise a 30 mile range. And that brings up a very important point. Whatever the package promises, you won't get it! It may be true on prairie-flat land when the ionosphere is optimal and there are no other electrical devices for a hundred miles. But it will not be true for you in the field, when there is a hill in the way, and it's raining, and your batteries are not at full charge because the radio uses up battery power more quickly than most other devices.
You must test your radios after you get them. Get in the car and drive away. Do not use the radio while driving, because it is easy to get distracted with a new device. Pull over from time to time and check to see if you can still talk with the other person who is staying at home base with the other radio. See how far you can go before you lose their signal. Does it cut off when you go over the hill? How about when you go the other way where the road curves. Does it last all the way into where you work? Probably not. There are real limitations to most of the handheld 2-ways.
But if you are in an emergency situation and you get separated, a quick radio call can find the other person just down the line a little ways. If you are evacuating in two cars, they can keep you in touch when the cells go out. How many times have people searching for each other passed just a few dozen yards away, never to make contact. These radios are of limited use, but that limited use can make all the difference.
We have some. We had to practice using them, because some of us were not used to radio communications. You have to press to talk, and release the button to listen. You have to be on the same channel as the other person. You cannot use certain channels without a license. All this is explained well in most instruction books that come with the radios. They really do a good job in this realm, as far as I've seen. Which is necessary, because otherwise they would be unusable. Anyway, it is simple to learn. But you have to practice. Get it down, so that you can use them during an emergency when it is much more difficult to think straight. Actually, practicing can be kind of fun. Did you ever want a 2-way radio as a kid? Now you have one. Enjoy it.
And remember to replace the batteries when they are even a little down. As I said, these devices eat up battery power.
Beyond CB. The 2-way handheld radios use CB, the part of the radio spectrum that the government has designated 'Citizens Band'. There are much longer range frequencies beyond that. And here we enter the esoteric realm of the 'Ham' radio operator. You can set up a pretty decent ham radio for a few hundred... no, not really... few thousand dollars. I'd like one, but once a person gets into it, a person can get really obsessive about it. It's fascinating. My wife won't let me.
There have been some ham operators whom the government has come to for advice about radio frequency issues. The people in black cars who come to ask those questions have to be very careful not to brush up against one of the antenna bases. The amount of power surging through a ham operator's antenna can so some serious frying. Not to mention the gear inside the ham shack, which has to be a small building as far away from anything else as possible, for many good reasons.
But I digress. Most ham operators are sensible, and very intelligent. They have reasonably powered gear in their basement, and cause no difficulties whatsoever. In times past, they were sometimes hassled by neighbors for fouling up TV reception, but with the advent of Cable, that is no longer an issue. Civil authorities wisely request their services when other means of communications go out, both in this country and other nations. They are sort of the 'national guard' of the airways, unpaid, unsung, but definitely made of the right stuff. My hat is off to them all. I wish I could be one.
If you want to look into being a ham, check out Ham Radio Online. If you are a ham and want to volunteer your services, you might want to take a look at Kaufman County, Texas' ARES site. They are associated with the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) and offer courses in Amateur Radio Emergency Communications. Or maybe you want to become a ham and learn emergency communications. It's a big world out there, and you might be surprised how much you can do in it.
The Internet. I'm truly sorry, but there are so many systems that have to be up and running for it to work for normal people, that the World Wide Web is most likely going to be an early casualty during any widespread emergency. If it's a local problem, it is possible that you can use your UPS power supply for a few minutes. But even then, your local server will probably be down. I wish it were not so. But that's the way the cookie crumbles. (That's a joke. Some sites use cookies. No one gets this one until I explain it. But I can't help myself.)
However the Internet does have a distinct advantage - it was designed specifically to be easy to connect to and difficult to destory (in its entirety). Which means that certain setups, say a laptop with solar cells and a nice satellite uplink would probably mean you'd be able to connect to the internet... in most cases. In some countries that have had 'civil issues' though, bloggers have had a chance to make people in other countries aware of whats happening. But still... I would not wish to count on it. It depends on a lot of infrastructure.
All Fouled Up
Radio. The emergency system stations should be bulletproof in normal emergencies like hurricanes. (We won't bring up what happened during Katrina.) So you really should have a dedicated emergency radio for those times. But an even more serious scenario could disrupt them, even if they are functioning perfectly. Perhaps a... let's call it a 'higher level' source... is operating in your area. It is rumored that a certain ship off the coast of a certain west coast town was using some of their more sophisticated equipment, and blanked out all TV and radio reception in the entire metropolitan district until they realized what they were doing. And that was just an accident.
My feeling is that you should prepare for the worst case scenario, and have your own emergency evacuation plan in place. What will you do if no one is telling you what to do? Think for yourself, and think ahead. Get a map and see what roads there are in your area that you could use if the main route is blocked. Look at the topography of your area and know where the high ground is. And check for caves or other unusual shelter places. Who knows, you might be very happy that you did.
Phones and 2-ways. Cells go out within a few minutes or instantly. Doesn't really matter, because so many people are using them that all the lines are busy and you can't get through anyway. Same with the landlines, and then they go out, too. Aren't you glad you at least have you 2-way radios? Not only will you be able to communicate with household members, you will probably be able to talk with other people in your immediate area who have them. Scan the channels. There could be someone who could use your help. Or maybe you can find someone to help you, if you have gotten into an accident when the disaster hit. If the roads are blocked, people will have to rely on help from only the people in their immediate vicinity. It would be nice to be able to find someone who has enough sense to have a 2-way radio with them.
Ham Radios. Should be up and running the longest of any source. If you don't know a ham operator, and that is very likely because they tend not to talk about it outside their own circle, you might look around for one to be friends with. They are awfully nice friends to have in an emergency.