The recent rash of natural disasters to hit the United States, including hurricanes in places like Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida, and wild fires in California, have been traumatic not only to the communities they struck, but to the United States as a whole, as Americans from all over traveled, donated, and mourned in support of their fellow countrymen that were in harm’s way.  Unfortunately, disasters of these sort are often unavoidable, but like any dark cloud looming over our heads, a silver lining remains, if you just look hard enough.

In the military, risk is an inherent part of the job, but a great deal of effort is put forth toward mitigating that risk in all the ways possible, using a combination of human and technological assets to limit the ways in which things might go wrong – but how are these risk-averting concepts developed before they can be employed by the next wave of American war fighters?  Well, more often than not, those lessons are learned the hard way; through operations gone wrong, mistakes being made, or the world generally conspiring against you.  Hence the incredible value of what are commonly referred to as “after-action reports,” which offer those both the directly involved and uninvolved alike the opportunity to pour over the circumstances that lead to tragedy, victory, or both, and identify ways to help try to stack the deck in our favor on future operations.

When calamity strikes in the civilian world, the same methodology can be employed to help better prepare for the next time such an event occurs, and by taking an objective step back and looking past the sorrow, most disasters are willing to offer at least some bit of wisdom in exchange for the loss of life and livelihood.  Here are a few tips I learned by experiencing and covering the recent wave of natural disasters to strike the United States.

 

(AP Photo)

Cell phones will not be reliable after a disaster.

In the wake of Hurricane Irma, my small community in Georgia found itself in a near-total communications blackout.  Power went out, phone lines went down, and the internet was a lost cause – but everyone had expected that.  What people didn’t anticipate, however, was how long cell phone service would be down in the aftermath of the storm.

We tend to think of our cell phones as direct conduits to satellites high above us (in the case of satellite phones, that may be the case) but for the most part, the smart phone in your pocket relies on a series of towers in your area.  Those towers, like just about everything else, rely on a functioning electrical grid to operate, and of course, are susceptible to damage from things like high winds and flying debris.  In our case, we had power back well before our cell phone service was restored, which for families like mine, meant we still had no way to call for help if something were to go wrong for weeks after Irma had already dissipated into vapor.

The same was true for residents of Northern California last month, where wild fires destroyed not only lives and property, but the cell phone infrastructure people relied on to call for help and keep in touch with loved ones.  Cellular phones, despite being wireless, are still beholden to the conditions befalling your community, and cannot be relied on in the event of a disaster.  Remember that most applications require service to work, including radios and GPS navigation.