[californiadisasters] Re: Diversifying Your Communications Portfolio

The article makes some excellent points and provides good advice in general. I do have one caveat relative to satellite phones.

After the cell phone failures of September 11th many obtained sat phones. The city I worked for bought 6 for the city manager, myself and 4 other department heads. Call time is expensive but we made once call each months to ensure they would work. We knew they did not rely on land infrastructure in the area and should work even with area wide disruption.

A few months Katrina two friend from Louisiana came to stay with me for a few days after we took part in a program at Harvard's Kennedy School. One of the individuals was a senior LA state police officer and the other was and is the EMA director of a parish in LA. Both said that sat phones were of little use after Katrina. After Katrina many news media teams and some large corporations sent teams to the area. Apparently as soon as the teams would get there they would make a call to their home office/network news center/ etc and then hand the sat phone to an aide to keep the line open 7x24. Apparently each satellite has a limited number of channels/lines and the media/companies etc that came into the area had grabbed all the available lines and the satellite phones my friend's had were of use only as expensive paperweights. The only way they had to communicate outside the area was ham radio.

Sat phone can be nice but I would not count on them being of use.

--- In californiadisasters@yahoogroups.com, Kim Noyes <kimnoyes@...> wrote:
>
> *Diversifying Your Communications Portfolio*
>
> By Todd Hall
>
> Have your diversified your methods of receiving and relaying information?
> With the advent of television, mobile phones, and the internet, many are
> becoming less and less reliant on radios, landline-based telephones and
> amateur radios. Many dis-aster plans focus on choosing one contact person
> to minimize stress on the commu-nication network, but how will you con-tact
> them if the communication network is disrupted? If a major weather disaster
> or large earthquake were to occur, could you rely on mobile phone or
> landline phone to be work-ing? A power grid failure after a major disaster
> will likely disrupt the typical communi-cation network for a number of
> hours and possibly a number of days. Most state and local entities have
> taken the steps necessary to account communication dis-ruption during an
> emergency or life-threatening scenario by having many dif-ferent methods of
> receiving and distrib-uting information, but have you taken similar steps
> accordingly to make sure that you are prepared for a crisis situa-tion?
>
> When Hurricane Katrina affected the Gulf Coast in August 29, 2005, many
> tel-ephones, including most mobile phones, and Internet access were out of
> service because of line breaks, destruction of base stations, or power
> failures. Some base stations even had their own back-up gen-erators, but
> failed due to the duration of the power outage immediately following
> Hurricane Katrina. All local television and radio stations and newspapers
> were disrupted throughout the New Orleans area. There was a time period
> when no information was available about certain parts of the Louisiana and
> Mississippi portions of the Gulf Coast. In most cases, amateur radio
> provided as a means of communication, including the law en-forcement and
> first response sectors.
> If a similar type emergency scenario to Hurricane Katrina such as a major
> earthquake, tsuna-mi or major storm system were to occur in Southern
> California, it is conceivable that communication networks may be disrupted
> for a number of days. Understand that there are other methods of receiv-ing
> news and relaying information to your loved ones including: satellite
> phones, amateur (or HAM) radios, and �All Haz-ards� NOAA Weather Radio,
> your single source for comprehensive weather and emergency information. A
> NOAA Weath-er Radio can be purchased at any elec-tronic store for as little
> as $25, with HAM Radio packages starting around $100 plus licensing fees,
> and satellite phone varying in cost depending upon the price of the handset
> and contract. By diversifying your ways receiving news and relaying
> information, you and your family may feel safer in the advent of major
> life-threatening emergency.
>
> Source:
> http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/lox/scripts/headline_download.php?get=20121006_1710.pdf
>
> --
> Check out http://groups.yahoo.com/group/californiadisasters/
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>




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