Preparing for Phone and Internet Service Disruptions
Resilience when the network isn't there.
Outages of phone and internet service are common. Plan for the gap, not panic.
Keep offline copies
Save maps, contacts, key documents, and emergency numbers where you can reach them without service. A phone with no signal is still a useful device if its contents are available offline: downloaded maps, a contacts list, photos of your insurance cards, and a copy of your evacuation route.
Download offline maps for your home area, your commute, and any routes you'd use in an evacuation. Cell coverage gaps are common exactly where evacuations happen. A paper map of your area and your routes fits in a glove box and never runs out of battery — keep one as a backup to the digital copy.
Have a radio
A battery or hand-crank NOAA weather radio is the most reliable public-alert source during an outage. It works when the power is out and the cell network is down, and it receives official alerts directly from the National Weather Service. A model with SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding) can alert only for your county so you are not woken for alerts that don't affect you.
Keep spare batteries for the radio and test it periodically. A radio you have never turned on is a radio you may not be able to operate under stress. Know which stations carry local information and how to tune to them before you need to.
Plan for payments
When digital payments stop, a little cash and a backup card matter. Keep a small reserve of cash in small bills, since businesses may not be able to make change during an outage. Know your bank's offline options and keep a backup payment method in case one card or network is unavailable.
Keep a copy of important account numbers and a contact number for your bank in your go-bag. If you can't access online banking, you may still be able to call. Never store passwords or PINs in plain text; a password manager with an offline copy of your emergency credentials is a safer approach.
Sources & further reading
This guide is planning guidance, not emergency advice. In an emergency, call 911. See a mistake? Report it.
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