7 iPhone Apps That Can Save Lives
My favorite is #6 “Emergency Radio”
“An earthquake takes out the power. You get stuck in traffic afer hearing an explosion. Your building is evacuated and you don’t know why. We can think of a million reasons to have an emergency radio handy. For $0.99, you can have the emergency frequencies of almost all the major police and emergency departments in the U.S., as well as air traffic control.”
The only problem is that when an emergency situation happens, the cell phone network is probably going down…hard. One of the lessons learned by law enforcement during the recent terrorist events in Mumbai is that you need to cut off the terrorist’s command and control structure. In Mumbai that was cell phones.
In another recent disaster, when the 35W bridge in Minneapolis MN collapsed, there were thousands of people sitting in the Metrodome less than a mile away. Most had cell phones. The sheer call volume overwhelmed the cell phone network that day. It made it difficult for first responders and any equipment that relied on the cell phone network.
But at least you might be able to hear what’s going on, if you’re lucky. That’s better than nothing. Personally, I have a 2M VHF transceiver in my car. If I can get to my car, I’m good. The radio allows me to contact a myriad of people within a 100 mile radius using a decentralized repeater network. If the repeater is down the simplex range is about 30 miles.
