From Emergency Management:
Where to go during a communications shutdown
If you’ve been in meetings and exercises that simulate a total communications loss, you’ve likely wondered what you would do in the event of a catastrophic failure that takes down cellular, Internet, power, and even your own systems.
Haiti, Jan. 12, 2010. Within a few days after the quake, a team of amateur radio operators from WX4NHC at the National Hurricane Center was called upon to serve as the main source of medical communications. Over the next five weeks, the team manned a 24-hour net connecting Haiti field hospitals, the University of Miami Medical Center and the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort, relaying on-the-spot medical advice from stateside doctors, relaying medical supplies, charter airplane flight schedules and helping coordinate emergency helicopter and fast boat evacuations.
In Joplin, Mo., May 22, 2011. The hospital, two local fire stations and the town took a direct hit by an F5 tornado. All normal communications were down for weeks. Regional amateur radio operators were called in to help establish communications.
Fortunately, in these scenarios, there have been established relationships between government agencies and groups of volunteer amateur radio operators who were on call, up to speed and equipped to help.
There have also been multiple examples nationwide of 911 centers losing radio communications with police, fire and ambulance because of accidental cable-cutting, cybercutting, or simple equipment failure. Local radio amateur group volunteers are called upon to help maintain communications until the normal operations resume.
More at the site - even if the cell phone towers have backup power, their capacity will be overloaded with people trying to call. Having a backup plan is a good thing - our group tests every Sunday with a special test on the last Sunday of each month trying different techniques.
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