"Mirror, Mirror on the wall . . . where did he go, and why doesn't he call?"

Natural Disaster Cell Phone Outages





Don’t ask me why, but this is a topic that I feel compelled to write about. Strange, isn’t it? Cell phones and natural disasters – you’re probably thinking, “What?”

I’ll get right to the point here. It simply amazes me at how many people are completely, 100% relying solely on their cell phone for communication. Many people no longer have access to a landline in their home. And I get it – why pay two phone bills, right?

Well, there are several things to consider here and one good reason, especially:

Natural disasters.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to begin running around like Chicken Little here, screaming that they sky is falling. And as far as the apocalypse is concerned . . . I feel that the “end of the world as we know it” will mean just exactly that. The end “as we know it,” meaning that with which we are familiar with. Not an end to mankind, but an evolutionary leap forward into a new, more aware, more evolved way of living.

Ok, enough of that. Now that I’ve got that out of the way, let’s face it – we may have been living through the apocalypse for the last 10 years or so and just didn’t know. Ever consider that? Tsunamis, earthquakes, rampant large scale wildfires, hurricanes, civil unrest, mistrust of political leadership, financial crisis, terroristic attacks, flooding on grand scales . . . sounds apocalyptic enough to me.

Ever notice what the first thing to go in one of these scenarios is?

You guessed, it – cell phone service.

One minute into a potential large scale crisis situation and BAM – service crashes. Sometimes for hours, sometimes for days on end. So for those of you relying solely on cell phone service as your mode of verbal communication, you may want to rethink that.

I realize landlines may crash in the event of a grand scale disaster, but you may at least get in touch with a family member or two first before it happens. If you’re relying on a cell phone to do so, chances are – you won’t reach ANYONE.

We recently had an earthquake in Pennsylvania if you can believe that. And a fairly significant one. I believe when all was said and done, it was deemed a 6.1. A friend of mine lives in Virginia, which was much closer to the epicenter. I tried contacting them immediately. No go. Within moments – absolutely no service whatsoever. In the end, she was without service for hours that day, unable to reach her spouse who was in Washington, D.C.

And when the Twin Towers fell on 9/11 . . . I don’t need to remind you that cell service was down immediately and for quite some time afterward. Most of the people getting through to loved ones that day were the ones telephoning home via office landlines from inside the building.

And there are other scenarios to consider as well. Cell phones need charged. What if your cell is low and God forbid, you’re the victim of a home invasion? As much as we hate to think it’ll happen to us, these things do happen, folks. What if someone is attempting to break into your home and you forgot to charge your cell? What if someone has broken into your home, and you’re in a room where the service is sketchy for whatever reason and calls tend to drop? What if you’re hiding under the bed or in the closet in this dreadful scenario? Does your cell receive a signal from there? The answer may be “no” – but I bet your cordless landline does.

It’s a sign o’ the times . . . and if you ask me, these are some very uncertain times we are living through. It stinks to have to think like this . . . but to think otherwise is unrealistic to me. And to think it can’t happen to you is. . . well, arrogant. Bad things can, and do happen, unfortunately.

Once again, just some food for thought, folks.

But I’m curious, have any of you experienced any of these scenarios and perhaps thought better of relying solely on cell phone service as a result? How many of you have experienced cell phone service outages in a crisis situation?

I think this could be a topic for some interesting discussion . . .

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4 Comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree, apocolyptic times we are living in for sure. And I, like you, do not understand the total dependence on cell phones only. What gives people?

Anonymous said...

Interesting topic. Perhaps this is why the government and Verizon are pushing the FiOS technology so hard? They know when everything goes to heck in a hand basket, the only comm technology that will work reliably or stand a chance of working anyways, is the one that relies only on light and no radio-waves... Fiber to door service will withstand nuclear war electromagnetic pulse blasts, any attempts at radio wave jamming (completely unaffected) if the equipment is properly shielded where it translates the light back to analog anyways, and it's cheap to deploy. Glass is cheaper now than copper... and it's impervious to water. Impervious to vibration (to a point). .. FiOS is the best bet and they are pushing it pretty hard right now.......to replace all buried and strung copper lines very soon... in fact, just in time for 2012... COINCIDENCE???

Cagey 6r

Soire said...

I can attest to the cell phone issue but landlines aren't everything... In the aftermath of the tornados in Alabama last year, cell phones weren't working. Cell towers were down and power was completely out everywhere in Huntsville. The land lines only worked about two days and I assume that backup power finally ran out. The interesting thing was that while I couldn't get a signal to call someone I could email. Texting was possible occasionally but email seemed reliable. after about 4-5 days cell phones were reasonably operational. We used our car batteries to charge our cells..of course those without gas were out of luck. In a diaster, at a minimum you need cash on hand because you can't rely on the atms, c batteries for the flash lights and d batteries for the radio (they will go quick and be scarce). And all those candles you have that people give you because they don't know what to get you...you'll come to love them immensely and wish you had more. you'll wish you had a small camping grill for heating water and such but most things can be improvised... Ice is a commodity and in isolated disasters you can still get it but it is also scarce. Corona will be depleted in a couple days...and you won't be able to get into an abc store for the duration due to concerns over looting so if you prefer something strong...keep plenty in stock. You'll get plenty of much needed rest and get to see more of your friends and meet new neighbors. You'll feel a little bit better about yourself because you'll help someone who needs you and people will generally be nicer and no one is too busy anymore to stop and talk... and best of all, you won't be stuck behind someone texting at the light or distracted talking on the cell phone because they won't have one :-)

Anonymous said...

I've been through a couple of hurricanes and one thing that remained consistent was that although I couldn't make cell calls, I could text. So at least I was able to tell my family I was okay.

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