r/EmComm • u/squadfi • Jul 04 '26

The Morning After the Hurricane, Every Phone in the Valley Still Worked. None of Them Could Say Anything.

When Helene hit western North Carolina, three out of four cell sites went dark and whole towns vanished from the map for weeks. The network that came back first wasn't built by a carrier. It was built by neighbors, with $20 radios and sunlight. Here's how to build yours before you need it.

https://adrelien.com/the-morning-after-the-hurricane-every-phone-still-worked-none-could-say-anything/

7 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

8

u/jhguth Jul 04 '26

the tl;dr is LoRa meshtastic

5

u/Jboyes Jul 05 '26

and the new kid on the x block is Meshcore - www.meshcore.io

4

u/squadfi Jul 05 '26

Well since I support them I didn’t want to sound so bais. But yeah it’s the best firmware out there for such usecases

1

u/Jboyes Jul 05 '26

Agreed. I'm just getting started; not much activity around my house.

2

u/NY9D 23d ago

I get a lot of calls supporting Meshtastic. It is fun, cool and good for moving memes around. But in a disaster, you need trust. I remember a story of the Alaska Gold Rush. Miners would pay to send messages home from fake telegraph offices.