There's an article about a lady who got into using the Zello app and ended up becoming a moderator/dispatcher for the Cajun Navy:

I downloaded an app and suddenly was parth of the Cajun Navy.

The problem with counting on something like Zello to save the day is that the cell service and internet in affected areas can be virtually non-existent. In Florida, in the Keys and at least 2 other counties, over 90% of the cell towers were destroyed or knocked offline. Phone company switching stations didn't fare much better with over half of them in the southern part of the state being offline. Even a bunch of 911 call centers were offline, including some of the biggest metropolitan areas down there.

What would be the right approach to creating an over-the-air Zello type thing? How would such a thing work? How could you make sure there were enough hams in the affected areas to be useful?

Just something I was reflecting on given the two huge disasters lately.

There are COWs that can be deployed very rapidly. Katrina was a big wake up and was also prior to everyone being connected 24/7. Since then technology has advanced rapidly as well as peoples expectations.


Look at the Virginia Communication Cache. As hams we can't even settle on a digital protocol because of brand loyalties to which HF radio has the best receiver. The reason the Zello app shined is because people don't have to study or buy extra gear. We see it in this forum all the time. Guy buys radio to save him from the apocalypse and sticks it in his bug out bag with the hundreds of dollars of other gear they are never going to practice or train with. Then it comes time and oh shit how do I program this? What freqs are people using?

Zello worked because people use phones everyday
Cajun navy works because those guys use their boats regularly

Hahahaha! You just invalidated the second sentence with the first. In fact, Zello worked for Harvey because the cellular infrastructure DID survive/recover reasonably well (not that it didn't take some damage). And, while I am not privy to any precise statistics, I have a number of friends and customers in Florida, mostly on the Gulf coast from Naples to Tampa, and I had ZERO difficulty texting or talking to any of them even during the height of the storm. I did notice some problems with power based on cellular comm's with my friends and customers, and some problem with the internet, but I had no difficulties reaching people by cellular, at least in the central Gulf coast. So I have a hard time believing the 90% statistic.

Let's face it, guys. With every hurricane or flood they do a better and better job of hardening both public and private comm's infrastructure, and a better job of repairing/restoring it. And, with the force multiplier of social media and app's like Zello, even a badly wounded cellular infrastructure will now ALWAYS be many orders of magnitude more effective than amateur radio because the ratio of cellular "operators" to ham radio operators is thousands to one. Sure, not everyone will get their comm's through via cellular. But the quantity of requests for help made via cellular will still be hugely superior to that from ham radio.

Not saying there won't be the occasional ham contribution. But they are getting fewer and less significant.

During Harvey, there were 2 counties that had virtually all cell services knocked out due to wind. Harris County, which includes Houston, had 1000 cell towers go off-line. (If I remember, that was only like 5% of the total, which strikes me as a YUUUUGE number of towers.)

Over in the Irma thread, the actual FCC statistics were also posted. 90+% in some areas of Florida. In the Keys and in the USVI, comms went down very quickly and very completely. And, COWS and COLTS couldn't and didn't get there very quickly and still haven't gotten to some places. If you listened to the Hurricane Watch Net for any length of time during Irma, you had some of the EOCs in Florida using ham HF to report weather conditions, damage, and other things.

BTW, the Harris County (Houston area) EOC had started packing up to evac because of flood waters. Their fancy, schmancy digital stuff (paid for with grants from DHS/FEMA) worked great until they didn't. The transmitting antennas were supposedly on the top of a skyscraper downtown. Normally, that would be the best place for them. However, because downtown flooded first, they lost power there. No problem, they had back-up generators, until those got flooded, too. At that point, they were all dressed up and no place to go.

I'm just saying that ham radio has a place in large-scale disasters and it would be good if we could take the lessons learned and make ham radio a more viable tool in those types of situations.

Yup that's it all the millions of dollars and years of engineering is nill because we overlooked the boafeng.

LMR radios can all do talk around just like hams simplex. If the public safety towers are taken out it is a good chance the hams towers are gone too. There are plenty of HF radios stationed around gov facilities throughout the country. There are also satellite systems that are a little more robust then the AO-51.

That said hams are by far more educated on their gear and what it takes to make communications. For the everyday Joe they aren't going to have a simple option available to them. People in general aren't going to carry around an HT much less know how to use it.

Zello and the like just proved why even public service is moving to first net.

I do want to say that there are hams out there that really take their jobs seriously and can be a huge asset.

ETA

http://www.wdsu.com/article/mom-uses-ham-radio-to-find-missing-son-in-wake-of-harvey-destruction/12168486

Katrina was a big wake-up call, I remember reading the proposed FCC docs after that. The telcos moaned but
did up their best practices, and if you look at the outcome from Sandy, it was completely different -- cell service
was so much better (and cheaper) that the local telcos were giving it to people as a replacement for landlines
until the local regulators came down on them.

I have no doubt ham will step in when other systems fail, and I think the lack of "modernization" is actually
an asset in this circumstance, e.g. there's a lot less to go wrong, because honestly, if you're at the point
where ham is the primary communications mode, everything has gone wrong.

In my own area we've had outages in the past and volunteers deployed to post offices and malls as a proxy
for calling 911, that's how I'd expect things to continue happening. Cell infrastructure is only going to get
better, but when something so huge it takes it out happens, plain old single-channel simplex FM is probably
an appropriate backup. But that's what it is... a backup.

I'm past arguing if Ham is relevant for EMCOMM.  It is-though not like it used to be.  I stood and announced this past Tuesday night, in the local ARES meeting that I was conducting, that Ham Radio will not Save The World-but it's a great tool to have in your world-saving tool box to lean on if something breaks or needs some help.

.

Here are two groups that are trying to create what the OP proposed.  I personally like them both.

Radio Relay Int'l

Ch3 Project (AmRRON)

Like it or not, they are there and are training to serve their fellow humans in any sort of emergency.

I was on Long Island the day after Sandy back to my hometown (still have family there) - there was no cell service in my town. I was on a 6hr check in schedule with the reserves and was able to reach someone who called in for me and relayed info...

best I've got since the big northeast blackout in what...2003? that was the day I got my ticket....

Guess the disaster in PR and USVI kinda answers the original question in the affirmative.

this

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjv7d8/ham-radio-hobbyists-are-connecting-the-caribbean-after-hurricane-maria-puerto-rico

It's a fart in a windstorm, guys. FEMA reports 126 satphones already on the island, with 235 more delivered to Atlanta and enroute. All airports are open to commercial traffic at reduced flow rates. Cellular service is up another few points to 10% island coverage, it's a lot better than that around San Juan. There's been no DIRS update since the 22nd, but I would bet the next one will show some significant improvement.

By the time the 25 Red Cross/ARRL teams get there and get set up a significant fraction of the island will have cell service. Even if it's only 20% coverage certainly it will be easier to get to cell service than one of the 25 ham teams.

What would make a much larger difference than sending ARRL teams over there would be to send a crapload of solar USB chargers for cellular phones.

And 10 times that many satphones would still be a drop in the bucket compared to what the comm needs are. We've already seen reports where the emergency personnel are using 2m simplex to be able to communicate. The 50 volunteers will likely be sent in two-man teams to the various Red Cross shelters to start gathering and transmitting rosters of those in the shelters and H&W messages to the ARC web site. The current cell coverage of 10% means nothing if there's no power for people to use them, and, much of the 10% is near San Juan, leaving most of the rest of the island in the dark. The ARRL teams left earlier today and will be set up by tonight or tomorrow. The problem with setting up your fancy digital first responder network is that it relies on cell infrastructure to be effective. That got completely wiped out there. So, emergency personnel are left with very few options as a backup.

The sealift really hasn't materialized due to the lack of available (ie operational) docks. And, even when containerized cargo gets there, there are insufficient local truck drivers and trailers to transport the stuff where it needs to go. Airlift seems to be working OK so far, mainly because they've virtually shut down incoming commercial airline traffic. I read where one ham operator had passed along over 500 messages in a day between PR and the mainland. They'd have to be short and sweet messages for that to happen, but still.

Sending solar chargers and large portable solar arrays charging batteries (for example Powerfilm Powershade in 1kw, 2kw, 3kw versions )would be a very good solution mainly because it doesn't require fuel, something already in short supply (and will be worse the more generators get turned on).

There are no great solutions nor are there any quick solutions. Only less bad or somewhat faster solutions. I really feel for the folks down there.

I agree that cell phone coverage will continue to improve and providing a way for charging cell phones would be very effective in improving comms. Almost any individual effort in this type of event is a fart in a hurricane. There are still tons of people not able to get health and welfare traffic out of PR. But there's quite a group of amateurs stateside stepping up to deliver messages from the active nets. That group of 25 amateur teams could have a huge impact on helping the initial recovery efforts with comms over the next few weeks if they're in the right spots. I believe they'll have a huge impact if used. It's easy to underestimate the value of communication beyond line of sight in these disaster scenarios.

I've been listening to the traffic nets carrying health and welfare traffic out of PR and the amateurs on both sides have been doing an amazing job to get the messages out. I only wish we could do more.

It takes power to restore cell and data service and it takes fuel to restore any type of emergency power. From the reports I'm seeing, fuel is really scarce across most of the island for obvious reasons. I'm thinking any real restoration of comms service is months not days away.

I predict that we'll continue to see things unfold in PR that will make it a study for one of the worst SHTF scenarios for weeks to come.

My prayers go out to them.

Health and welfare messages passed through a third party is 19th century telegraph service. People want to be able to communicate!

DStar seems like a fairly 1:1 replacement for Zello, no?
One bad thing about a lot of the newer ham technology is they're connected to the internet for some functions. Someone needs to build a mesh network based APRS/Dstar/DMR-like standard.

AREDN is a viabel alternative-but even it's limited....

it's an Emergent Situation, unfortunately most regular joes don't understand or appreciate the fragility of the 'networks' they have all grown accustomed to using 24/7.  In this and many other instances, slow and antiquated work when systems are down or taxed to their limits.