Hurricane COMMs plus
Unless you are totally Narcisstic and sociopathic, communication in an emergency should be high on your list of skills and equipment to be developed by you and your family / group.
Have you ever played \telephone\ ? Often by the end of the transfer of the message no one recognizes it as the same as at the beginning. Typed OR recorded messages tend to convey meaning consistently. This is one of the reasons HAMs are shifting in a lot of cases to digital radio so that you can in effect send E-mail via radio instead of internet only.
However voice communications is still easy for dialog.
As long as the grid is at least mostly up [or at least spotty] ZELLO seems to be a great system to use so that people at least get the same message even if you don’t get it at the same time as the person next door. Better or at least as good as text.
Zello and texting does NOT replace HAM radios for reliability.
There are links at the bottom for more communications ect.
Zello tops US app store as the walkie-talkie for hurricane volunteers
•by Mike Butcher,
With Hurricane Irma hitting Florida’s southern islands as a category four storm, and more than 6.3 million being told to evacuate Florida, being able to stay in contact with the outside world is a high priority. As a result, smartphone apps which can help coordinate rescues and responses have become crucial to efforts.
The main one that’s being talked about — and downloaded at a prodigious rate — is Zello, a walkie-talkie app which was originally launched in Russia in 2007 under the name LoudTalks (but since moved to Austin, Texas in 2011) and now boasts 100 million users around the world. After being featured in a Houston Chronicle story about the “Cajun Navy” of volunteers who have been using the app to coordinate their efforts in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, the app hit the top of the US app store.
Zello appears to have added six million new registered users since Monday, the company’s CEO, Bill Moore, told BuzzFeed News, and is now the top free app on the iOS App Store. “With the crush of new users and emergency situations, most of the Zello team is working long days either maintaining capacity or helping with customer support,” he said.
However, the huge interest in Zello saw the company admitting it has had to add servers to keep it up.
Now, with Hurricane Irma bearing down on Florida, interest in Zello is being boosted yet again.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/zello-tops-us-app-store-123738499.html
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http://www.preparesurvivethrive.us/comms-part-1/
http://www.preparesurvivethrive.us/convalescent-care/
and some books that explore the topics in more depth
http://www.preparesurvivethrive.us/ready-or-not-things-will-happen/ This is book 1 the quick start guide to preparedness.
http://www.preparesurvivethrive.us/ready-or-not-fun-things-will-happen/ This is book 2 about traveling and evacuation planning.
http://www.preparesurvivethrive.us/hurricane-season-2
http://www.preparesurvivethrive.us/eclipse-aar This one will give you an interesting look at travel snarl ups when it not an emergency.
www.castlesandcruises.com has some interesting info for your consideration during this season.