After Katrina, the *ONLY* communications that worked were HAM Radio, and CB. Cell phones were all out for several days, and some areas were out for weeks.
CY: Were you able to get any thing on AM or FM radio? I know that where I live, I can sometimes get Am or FM stations from the next city over. I routinely listen to a FM station from a city about 100 miles away. At night, the AM band comes to life, and I can get sometimes 100 stations on the AM dial, in my van.
Power was out for as long as 4 - 5 weeks. I lost commercial power for
10 days, phones and cable were out for 2 1/2 weeks.CY: That's a long time to be without.
The local TV station was up on generators, but unless you had a generator of your own, you didn't know what was going on. For a week, the TV stations source of news was what came in on the HAM radio, or what literaly walked in through the back door.
CY: I've seen battery power TV for sale. But, now, with the digital signals, they are all useless. Some people used to take battery power pocket size TV to sports games.
Personally, I have a whole house generator, so I wasn't lights out for but just a couple of minutes. I didn't lose any antennas, so I was on the air almost continuously when I was at the house. Second day after the storm, I was at the TV station passing message traffic for them. When I was on the road and stopped anywhere, I was passing message traffic for folks with the rigs in the truck.
CY: Sounds like a good use of time.
BTW... almost *EVERY* fridge/freezer that was lost was due to running on generator and they let the generator run out of gas, or they shut down the generator when the fridge/freezer was plugged in and running.
CY: Have to remember that. Thanks.