If there’s one thing we should have learned recently in the wake of 911, Hurricane Katrina, and Haiti, it’s that despite all the technology available to us, there is still a problem with effective communication during disasters. Experts scratch their heads as emergency workers race to find a way to message each other and get their jobs done effectively, while the public shakes their heads collectively at the appearance of chaos. For many, the failures of cell phones, the Internet, and even mobile radios that occurred during Katrina have yet to be addressed. Discussions about increasing networks, adding cell phone towers, and making cell phones compatible have all been included in the mix of proposed solutions, but the reality is that it all comes with huge complications, the same unsolvable problems, and high prices. . And, in this shaky economy, no one has found a way that makes economic sense to instigate those solutions – the reality is, they just aren’t practical.
What is realistic is to go back to a tried and true form of communication that is reliable, inexpensive, and time-tested to work in a variety of situations, including natural disasters. That communication system is pager. When many people hear the word pager, they think of the old-fashioned “pager,” which is anything but fancy and sexy compared to a smartphone that has an app for everything except communication during natural disasters. However, if the old pager is what comes to mind with the verbal indication “pager”, then clearly a pager shop should be on the destination list and soon.
Today’s pagers are sophisticated and capable of much more than “in the past” and include one-way pagers, two-way pagers, and pagers that have Internet and email capabilities. However, the brilliance of a pager is in the way a pager receives its signals and sends messages. For cell phones to work, they rely on networks assigned to a single channel on a single transmitter to a mobile connection with a much smaller range and then rely on the network to “transfer” the call to another tower, if there is a channel. available and not overloaded. Pagers, on the other hand, operate from a simulcast network that simultaneously delivers a radio signal from multiple transmitters providing a wider coverage area and better building penetration than other technologies. A locator tower can cover an area approximately sixty miles wide compared to a cell tower that can cover a maximum of ten miles. So what happens in the event of a hurricane, tornado, or flood when these towers are damaged or toppled? In the case of a locator tower, an emergency tower can be erected immediately and a gas generator operated. Installing an emergency locator tower can be done in the most remote locations and can literally be done in the back of a pick-up truck if the situation calls for it. This is not the case with a cell phone tower, in fact, replacing a tower and getting a signal for cell phone operation is complicated and requires much more to work and is not likely to happen in an emergency situation, and then there is the problem of receiving a signal from that temporary tower. The problem of no signal is eliminated with the use of pagers.
Public address systems can also easily assign priorities and automatically block or limit non-critical users during periods of time when it is imperative for emergency users to have access. Pagers were designed to send mass messages to large groups of people and have been used in this function for years. In the event of natural disasters, first responders and other emergency personnel need information to be disseminated in this way without fail. This problem became widespread during Hurricane Katrina and there was no way to counteract the crisis. If pagers had been used, the information could have been disseminated and sent to the masses without a hitch instead of dropping messages in bottles from airplanes as happened in Katrina.
The last feature of a pager that demonstrates the advantages of the device over cell phones is reliability. Pagers do not work with a battery that must be charged with electricity. The pagers are powered by standard batteries and the battery life, and therefore the life span of the pager, is from several months to a year. With the simple replacement of a battery, the locator works again. Try recharging a cell phone in a natural disaster when the power has run out. Clearly, a pager is the more reliable option when the two are compared.
It’s time to ask the tough questions with easy answers and wonder why we ignore what is in front of us and what is available. Why are we not using the only communication tool that is trustworthy, inexpensive, trustworthy, and safe to save lives in these emergency situations? Why are pagers not in the hands of all first responders at work? Sometimes newer with more apps and features is not what the job requires. Sometimes practical and proven is what we should be using, that is, if we want to avoid the calamity that was known as Katrina. Our first responders and our public deserve to have this simple solution. No amount of cell phone features or ringtones will make up for the lack of communication this country has suffered during the most recent natural disasters. It’s time to put life-saving tools back in the hands and pockets of our first responders. Time to go back to pagers.