Storm Comms

[00:00:00] Welcome back to the Prepcoms podcast. Caleb Nelson, K4 CDN, your host here. Thanks so much for dropping by the show and giving the listen as we continue to walk through these developing conditions it seems like every episode we have a new disaster, we

[00:00:51] have a new problem or what not to talk about. This time through we're going to have to date the program August 4th of 2024. We have almost Hurricane Debbie, she's a tropical storm right now, off the Gulf Coast of Florida

[00:01:09] coming in probably going to affect even the states of South Carolina, Georgia, maybe Tennessee with a lot of flooding following the storm as well as who knows what else will come of

[00:01:19] it as at least according to the models right now middle of the day Sunday the 4th of August. That means 10 days from now is my brother's birthday so happy birthday squirrel.

[00:01:29] Hey I did a post on Instagram and I'm going to go through that post right here for this program. This isn't the official episode for this week but I wanted to go ahead and get this out

[00:01:40] so if it's early it's early and you can do with it what you will. You know, I don't want to be held to a schedule anyway so I'm going to do as often as I can get these programs to you and hope that you're enjoying them and listening

[00:01:51] to them and learning from them right. So anyway Caleb Nelson I'm here in the upstate of South Carolina. My wife and I have been married for over 25 years. We've got a small business it's called the Hub City Mercantile.

[00:02:02] We sell parts and filters and new systems and et cetera everything related to the Berkey Berkfeld water filter systems. If you need any help with that especially in the middle of a storm I would be happy to help you. I did a list the other day on Instagram.

[00:02:19] I called the storm comms checklist and I'm going to go through these programs, go through these things real quick on the program and just hit these highlights here real quick. One of the first things you should have regarding communications and preparations for a storm.

[00:02:32] Okay hang on a minute before I go there I know some of you in the Midwest don't have hurricanes. I know some of you in the upper northwest don't deal with I don't know tornadoes or something.

[00:02:47] Everybody lives different places but everybody is faced with the same things that nature brings to you whether it's wildfires in California, earthquakes on the Madrid fault. Just kidding. You know a super storm Sandy up in the northeast. You got Debbie approaching Florida right now.

[00:03:07] I mean it can happen anywhere anytime and that was one of the reasons I created this timing with regards to this storm brought this to me. And of course we've been going through this on the program but at the same time don't let

[00:03:21] this storm that's you know being hyped on the TV news about this hurricane and what not affecting Florida and the east coast of the US. Don't let that just kind of dull your senses if you're in Oklahoma, if you're in Montana,

[00:03:35] if you're in Ohio because we all have things happening around us all the times and this could be this really is a checklist that you should be going through yourself as we are creating this program here.

[00:03:49] Prep comms, this is a storm comms checklist and number one is your comms plan. Now we haven't gotten that far in the program yet to develop a comms plan but if you really think about it what we've covered thus far is the foundation of your comms plan.

[00:04:06] All right? So what does a comms plan even look like? I'll tell you from my family this is how it goes. We have a family emergency word. If someone hears that word spoken or if they receive it via a text message they know dad

[00:04:21] is serious, something is up and if that happens then they are to reply on their phones if the service is available that they receive the message and immediately move to their vehicle to move home or to a closest safe space.

[00:04:37] In the midst of that when they get in their vehicle they start to lock their doors, they immediately power on their amateur radio. My kids are amateur radio operators as well as my wife so they have radios in their cars they can call and talk legally whatever.

[00:04:51] They begin calling for one of their family members say I got the message I'm on the way, they're moving towards home or their nearest safe space. And whoever is home first powers on the base station announces that over the air and we call

[00:05:08] each other in to our safe spaces or our homes. That's a very quick rundown of what I actually put together on the back of a business card. My kids have them in their cars printed a larger one for an insurance card style,

[00:05:23] size, all this is laminated in their vehicles on their person so they know what to do, when to do and how to do it. That's a comms plan. You may have little bitty kids that don't have phones, that don't need phones when they're

[00:05:35] that small and maybe that just you and your husband are communicating with your in-laws to coordinate where everyone's going in case of a storm or a bad deal. This is something to think about if you have no idea what I'm talking about check

[00:05:52] out my buddies over at Mad Gear Co. He makes a fantastic contingency planner and we're going to have him on the show down the road as we get into this pace plan talking and what not but I'll put a link in a show notes.

[00:06:04] Let me leave that there. That's the number one thing you need a plan. We've talked about planning since we started the program, mindset, planning, implementation. The second thing that a lot of people don't think about and God bless her my wife doesn't

[00:06:17] think about it either is when you leave home especially if you're going out of town or you're going to be overnight somewhere to take a phone charger with you just unplug it from the wall, get the cord, wrap it up, put it in your purse, put

[00:06:28] it in your overnight bag, have a spare. Have a spare in your car makes a lot of sense to me but maybe I'm the geek right. Another thing that you need for your storm comms checklist is a charging cable or maybe a spare cable.

[00:06:43] Maybe you've got maybe you have an Android phone and your daughter has an iPhone. Make sure you have cables that coordinate with those types of phones and if you end up somewhere and someone has a phone like yours or maybe not even like yours

[00:06:57] that needs to charge theirs and you have the capacity and you have a spare cable you can always share that like in an airport just being common sense and courtesy here right. Another thing that you need and this really goes all the way

[00:07:10] back to the top of the comms plan but I wanted to put it on the list to make people actually think about it and that is to have a written list of contact telephone numbers.

[00:07:22] I have loads and loads of phone numbers stored in my head from just being a kid in the 1980s but I struggle with my children's cell phone numbers today because it's just a button press that is their icon on the start screen of my

[00:07:37] phone. I can speak to Google, it'll dial them so you get all that and you get to where you can't memorize those numbers. So in a comms plan you would have these phone numbers there right but I wanted to put it on this list like

[00:07:50] with a highlighter to say hey do you have your mom's cell phone number memorized? It doesn't matter write it down on something with a list of numbers you may need. Your work, the daycare, your church, your pastor, whoever you know write

[00:08:05] these telephone numbers down in the end we're talking about the storm thing here and fold that up put it away somewhere where you have it make sure your children your spouse has these list of numbers that they may need in

[00:08:18] case of an emergency and I'm going to tell you in an emergent situation our heads don't always think the straight way so although you may remember your mom's telephone number and she still has a landline and that was the number you had

[00:08:31] when you were in third grade if it's weird and you're stressed it may be hard to dig it out so if you have it written on a list typed preferably laminated then that's going to help you a lot as you go through that

[00:08:44] situation another thing you have to have you have to have flashlights and I remember growing up as a kid my dad doesn't listen to the show so I can say this but my dad we had flashlights in our house but we never had batteries I

[00:08:58] mean if we were ever to needed to go outside in the dark to like play hide and go seek or to to go get the bicycle that we forgot out of someone's yard or something just whatever as children we never had batteries we

[00:09:11] had flashlights and no batteries and maybe it was just because we were poor and we didn't know it but we never had batteries and if we did have a flashlight with batteries it was seven eighths of the way dead so mmm get flashlights get

[00:09:24] batteries get flashlights get batteries and that doesn't mean you have to go buy you know like a surefire torch or something you know big thrower that's a you know nine million looms or something you know a nice handheld

[00:09:35] small lantern that can collapse and go into your bag put it in the you know the glove box of your car there's a lot of ways to do it nothing it doesn't all have to be tactical okay I mean it needs to be practical over tactical

[00:09:47] did I just come up with a new podcast maybe anyway you need practicality over tacticality and whatever will work for your situation for instance if you have little kids again you don't need to give them nine loom and nine million

[00:10:02] lumen lights right they can use a little a little pin what we call a pin light battery when I was a kid which is a triple a nowadays you can buy them for dirt nothing money at Harbor freight tool and it's just a little LED with

[00:10:15] like a watch battery in it that last who knows how long but it'll be great it's a great sense of security there's nothing like having your own source of light especially when the power is out so get flashlights get batteries

[00:10:28] and make sure they're working here we go episode number three a working AM FM radio why do you want that well you need to know what's going on go back to listen episode three if you don't remember but you need an AM FM radio

[00:10:43] and you need spare batteries for that radio now if you're one of those hand crank guys that's okay hand crank it make sure you got some batteries to put in it because they usually work both ways here's the deal you want an AM

[00:10:55] FM radio you need to know what's going on around you and in the local situation they will stop the music they will stop the talk they will stop the programming to tell you what's going on and how to be safe and where you can

[00:11:09] find supplies and whatnot don't depend on your cell phone in an emergency okay AM FM radio with spare batteries next one's a weather radio we've talked about that beat that horse to death is a super important accessory

[00:11:24] for your household you know what you can get an AM FM radio with a weather band and it may not do alerts but you can still listen to the forecast understand what's going on around you understand the storm that has passed and maybe the

[00:11:38] storm that's approaching so those can be complimentary they can be in the same unit themselves either way AM FM radios batteries and weather radios are crazy important now in an emergency a lot of times the cell networks won't

[00:11:52] work sometimes they'll be partially working sometimes you just need to go down and check on the old lady four doors down from the house your phone may or may not be working that's where the cheap handheld walkie talkies come in

[00:12:05] handy handy talkies as we call them in the amateur radio hobby listen there's nine million ways to do that one we're going to talk about it on down the road in another program but here's the deal they're cheap they're inexpensive

[00:12:17] and they work great in some in most cases as long as they are powered so you may consider do I want to buy the ones with the rechargeable batteries do I want to buy the ones I can add the AA batteries to you got to think through

[00:12:30] that before you get to this point and we're going to talk about those important things later down the road but here's the deal you need an alternate means of communications that's the crux behind this entire program is alternate communication so if you have some get them ready make

[00:12:45] sure they work with each other make sure they're on the same frequencies make sure your channel one is her channel one you may want to test and see how far around the neighborhood you can use those it's kind of like a flashlight we've

[00:12:57] gotten so used to having communications in our hands and we've got so used to having electricity that when one of those quits working it puts us in panic mode so a flashlight gives us security we can create our own

[00:13:09] light in case of an emergency and a little walkie talkie that we can talk to our spouse as we're checking on the neighbor or vice versa that gives us a little connectivity it makes us feel better it gives us a safety blanket and

[00:13:21] we feel better about things going on around us the next one up is a laptop or a tablet most everybody has at least one or two of those the reason they're on the list is if you wind up somewhere and you need internet

[00:13:34] connectivity or you need to send an email to someone or check your Facebook or post yourself say from hurricane Debbie whatever you can do that with your laptop and or a tablet in case your phone's not working if

[00:13:45] you find internet somewhere maybe your phone's damaged maybe you lose it here's the thing we're going through alternate communications here email posting on social media and whatnot is all important especially when you have the capacity to do that a laptop a tablet works just like

[00:14:01] and better in my opinion than your phone so take those with you make sure you have the chargers and you know what it never hurts to have charged right now in case you need to use it later I find myself all the time

[00:14:13] with my Samsung tablet that I very rarely ever use the moment I do need to do need to or want to use it I can't because I haven't charged it and maintain the battery so charge those things now plug them in get them

[00:14:26] started get it done last on this list is spare chargers and I put that on there going right back to the beginning of the list it may be that you have two outlets in your car that you can charge phones through and if

[00:14:39] you had a spare charger you can charge your neighbor's phone or maybe you end up somewhere and you really need to charge your phone but someone else is usually look one is nine two is one so always have spares you can get on

[00:14:52] Amazon.com you can order a spare charger for your phone they're very inexpensive acquired that way and then they work they work just fine so make sure you have the correct cables and the correct chargers and that's

[00:15:05] the end of my list and that's not the end of a list but that's the end of my storm comms list and the reason I put this list together again was to kind of make folks think oh the storms coming I need to get ready of course

[00:15:18] there's a just a gazillion things to do board up the house put the sandbags in place fill up the gas cans by the dog food you know pick up the stuff off the floor all these things that you could be doing and

[00:15:31] this is stuff that can already be done this is stuff that could be sitting there waiting for you if you had taken 30 minutes 45 minutes two hours hour and a half to get ready before the storm showed up and I'm not talking

[00:15:41] just about hurricanes I'm talking about everyday life we've lived it in my house every day life can bring you a storm but when you go through these things and you have list and whatnot set up for you a system is what a

[00:15:53] list is it will help you process and get through that situation a lot quicker listen I'm praying for you guys wherever you're at especially those that are going to be affected by the storm coming this week remember to

[00:16:06] love on your neighbors help your neighbors check on your neighbors you know that's part of a plan to that we're going to talk about down the road but it here's the deal guys we're all in this together when it

[00:16:17] happens we all need each other so give the list a look it'll be in the show notes and I'll be back next time we're going to talk about another alternative means of communications but until then 73 and praying for you guys God bless you see you later

[00:17:06] hub city mercantile is a real life brick and mortar store located in Spartanburg South Carolina it's also the official sponsor of this program prep comms and additionally it's also an authorized dealer and representative for the Dalton and British Birkfield water filter

[00:17:25] systems my wife and I have been in business for well over 25 years and we've recently added the Dalton and British Birkfield water filter systems to our store so if you have some water filter system needs if you need some replacement parts some replacement

[00:17:41] filters maybe you don't even have a water filter solution right now make sure you visit hub city mercantile dot com hub city mercantile dot com