Communications After Irene… Nothing Worse Than Feeling Cut Off From the World and Loved Ones
Hopefully your preparations for Irene are in full swing and near completion. The next question to ask yourself is how you will communicate after Irene when the power is out for days or even weeks. Find a HAM, really. It's too late to get your license and get radios and antennas set up today but find someone who is a HAM in your neighborhood. When all other communication fails HAM radio will be there. Your Amateur Radio operator will always have the facts when others do not. During past disasters there has always been terrible counsel given out by the media when they had only partial information. Some of that has even proven deadly. Know a HAM, get in touch and make a plan with them today.
Cell phone are often useless immediately following a disaster but may be usable after a few days. What if the power is still out?
- Cell phones are great but they need to be charged in order to work. Do you have a car charger for your phone? Today is the day to get one!
- Save battery by powering down the brightness of your display
- Text, don't call, it uses less power to text.
- Turn phone off when not in use.
- Don 't use your phone for anything except texting, no games, no email, nothing.
- Make a hard copy list of the people whose contact information is in your phone. Don't waste battery power looking up a phone number
Finally, landlines will still work when the power is down IF you have a phone which plugs directly into the wall and is not a portable phone. Now is the time to pull out those old phones or to run to the thrift store and buy one.
Be sure to check out the Totally Ready facebook page for updates and more tips.
Fantastic list Carolyn!
We were stuck through Charlie (in Ft. Myers) and did 'without' for so very long. Thankfully communications were only down a day or so, and we did have a fully charged set of cell phones.
The scary part was the folks who had the electric storm doors – they were literally TRAPPED inside (in 95+heat)! Thank the Lord we had a generator to help them open their homes up!
Keep up the good work!
Oh my goodness, electric storm doors! I would never have thought of that. Not sure why you would have electric but then I don’t have storm doors and when I live in NJ we didn’t have electric ones.
I might also point out that text messages are more likely to get through post-disaster than phone calls because of the way the system works. I would also suggest a hand-crank radio to keep up with local events.