EMCOMM and Starlink: Starlink makes is much easier and comfortable to provide welfare traffic. But it also needs infrastructure to work. Power supply for the Starlink terminal etc. is obvious.
But most smartphones must be charged once a day or so. And the operator himself must be self sufficient from clothing to water. I a community burdens could be distributed beforehand. The energy supply could be thought quite a bit bigger, to only name one topic.
Alexander - Good points, but in "mass shelter" provisioning provided by organizations such as FEMA, American Red Cross, Salvation Army, etc. I've seen that provisions are being made for charging up phones as part of the sheltering mission. This is pragmatic - the sooner those being sheltered can connect with insurers, family and friends, etc. the sooner they can move on from being sheltered. The IEEE MOVE team - https://spectrum.ieee.org/ieee-move-van-disaster-relief and ITDRC - https://www.itdrc.org both make provisions for emergency broadband communications and especially charging individual phones. But point taken, the power system for an individual Starlink unit needs to be oversized to operate for several days, and the other loads such as laptops and charging up phones.
We live on different continents with different climates, different cultures etc. Especially here in central Europe we have a very high population density and and much more stable infrastructure, especially houses, than large parts of the USA have.
An extremely popular German TV entertainer, Thomas Gottschalk, escaped with his family to California. He did a few TV features about the differences. "If you want to hang up a picture, you do not need a hammer drill or even a hammer. Simply take a nail and press it into the wall with your thumb."
The result is, that we have had only very local catastrophes over the last two generations. Hardly anyone has suffered some real hardship after a tornado etc. Hardly anyone, from inhabitants to the state, is prepared for something big. But I see it looming, considering the $%/) German Energiewende. Lots of power plants have been decommissioned without considering that the sun does not shine at night and even the wind dies down from time to time.
EMCOMM and Starlink: Starlink makes is much easier and comfortable to provide welfare traffic. But it also needs infrastructure to work. Power supply for the Starlink terminal etc. is obvious.
But most smartphones must be charged once a day or so. And the operator himself must be self sufficient from clothing to water. I a community burdens could be distributed beforehand. The energy supply could be thought quite a bit bigger, to only name one topic.
Alexander - Good points, but in "mass shelter" provisioning provided by organizations such as FEMA, American Red Cross, Salvation Army, etc. I've seen that provisions are being made for charging up phones as part of the sheltering mission. This is pragmatic - the sooner those being sheltered can connect with insurers, family and friends, etc. the sooner they can move on from being sheltered. The IEEE MOVE team - https://spectrum.ieee.org/ieee-move-van-disaster-relief and ITDRC - https://www.itdrc.org both make provisions for emergency broadband communications and especially charging individual phones. But point taken, the power system for an individual Starlink unit needs to be oversized to operate for several days, and the other loads such as laptops and charging up phones.
We live on different continents with different climates, different cultures etc. Especially here in central Europe we have a very high population density and and much more stable infrastructure, especially houses, than large parts of the USA have.
An extremely popular German TV entertainer, Thomas Gottschalk, escaped with his family to California. He did a few TV features about the differences. "If you want to hang up a picture, you do not need a hammer drill or even a hammer. Simply take a nail and press it into the wall with your thumb."
The result is, that we have had only very local catastrophes over the last two generations. Hardly anyone has suffered some real hardship after a tornado etc. Hardly anyone, from inhabitants to the state, is prepared for something big. But I see it looming, considering the $%/) German Energiewende. Lots of power plants have been decommissioned without considering that the sun does not shine at night and even the wind dies down from time to time.