How to Communicate with Loved Ones During an Emergency
Which technology can help you communicate with and find your loved ones?
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How to Communicate with Loved Ones During an Emergency
Recent terrorist attacks—like those in Paris and Beirut—have left the world stunned and saddened. After the initial attacks were over, there was a vacuum of information. Residents didn’t know what was happening, who was affected, which regions of the cities were safe to travel through, and, most importantly, if their loved ones were alright.
While this is an extreme scenario, there are many other situations where the ability to communicate with friends and family during a natural or manmade disaster may be very difficult. So, which technology can help you communicate with and find your loved ones?
Text Messaging
During a disaster you should expect that normal utilities, such as the Internet, cell towers, and phone lines, are going to be extremely busy. This is because everyone is trying to contact the people that they think might be affected at once. The situation is similiar to everyone in your neighborhood going to the store at the same time: lines would be extremely long and supplies would run out fast. The utility industry was built for general use and not to handle everyone on it at the exact time.
Because of this, you want to be able to get your message out using as little data as possible. The best way to do this is to send your simple run-of-the-mill text message. Text messages use an extremely small amount of data and therefore can get through much more easily on a busy cell tower. Phone calls are less effective because they use a constant stream of data, and have to maintain a constant connection in order for the audio to be heard for both parties.
You will also be helping alleviate congestion on your cell tower so that more people can use it. Be aware that if you have an iPhone, then iMessages (normally shown in blue) may have some issues getting through the congestion. You will be able to see if your text message seems to take a really long time to send.
In this situation, you may want to send a normal SMS instead of an iMessage. You can turn of iMessage temporarily by watching this video. You can also turn on the feature “Send as SMS” which is in “Settings” -> “Messages” -> “Send as SMS.” If this is on, your phone will automatically default to sending an SMS if your iMessage can’t get through.
On a quick note, telecom utilities like cell towers often have battery back-up and direct links to other information hubs. This means a simple blackout or loss of power for a few hours should not be an issue.
Wireless Internet
The next best way to communicate is through the Internet. In recent years, the Internet has had to increase speed and bandwidth (like increasing more lanes on the freeway), in order to be able to allow people to watch Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube. Video takes a lot of bandwidth, and luckily, during a disaster, most people are not going to be sitting down to a movie.
This means that if you have power, the Internet is a great way to exchange information. You can use all the standard ways of communicating, like email, Skype, messenger, and Facebook. I also recommend once you’ve coordinated what you need to feel safe, you should keep your conversation as minimal as possible in order to cut down on congestion. Just like any utility, such as phone lines, if everyone in the world watched Netflix at the exact same time, there would be a noticeable decrease in the speed of the Internet. During an emergency, the Internet will be used heavily. Keeping use to a minimum in an emergency means that it will be faster for everyone that needs to use it.
Facebook Safety Check
The attack in Paris was the first time that Facebook activated its ‘Safety Check’ feature for something other than a natural disaster. Essentially, Facebook uses location-based tracking to see if you might be close to an affected area. If you’ve enabled ‘location services’ for Facebook, it will prompt you saying that it believes you are in an affected area, and to check-in as safe. This will notify friends and family that you are safe. Here’s a link to the page, which has since been turned off.
I really like this idea because it’s an easy way to let a lot of people know that you’re safe, and Facebook is already a place many people go to check on their friends and acquaintances during a traumatic event.
What If Power Is Out and Phones Are Down?
Now that we are on the subject of communicating during a disaster, there may be instances where cell towers are out, and so is the power. This is most likely during a storm, earthquake, tornado, or some other natural disaster where physical damage has been done to telecom infrastructure. In this scenario, one of the best things to have with you is a dollar store AM/FM radio. You can pick up a handful of small pocket-sized radios for less than your morning coffee, which may be invaluable ways to communicate during a disaster. They will allow you to listen in on critical news and are powered on batteries so they do not require your house to have power.
I have a bunch of these little radios spread between my car, house, and work because they are so cheap. A circumstance where both power, and cell towers are out may be more rare than your typical disaster, but I’m sure it has still happened to you in the past, and will most likely happen in the future.
If this happens, it’s nice to have a trusty ham radio to fall back on. You may be thinking one of two things: “Are ham radios still around?” and “What the heck is a ham radio?” A ham radio can be thought of as a walky talky. These devices are made to talk directly between one another and don’t need a cell tower. This is useful because if you and your friends have these radios you can talk when power and cell towers are down. Ham radios can take up an entire room of equipment or can be the size of your cell phone. This is my favorite ham radio on the market because it’s cheap and works just like a walky talky. It has an effective range of about two miles in a densely packed city and up to twenty miles with line of site.
You may also want to check out my podcast on the best Road Trip Apps, in case you need to get out of an affected area, you’ll want to have apps that can find you gas, directions without congestion, and the ability to keep tabs on all of your family members in different cars.
Be sure to check out all my earlier episodes at techtalker.quickanddirtytips.com. And if you have further questions about this podcast or want to make a suggestion for a future episode, post them on Facebook QDTtechtalker.
Until next time, I’m the Tech Talker, keeping technology simple!
Image courtesy of Shutterstock.
