[Steven Lake]

One thing I don't think we've discussed much, and which periodically comes up during my research, is communication. One of the things you read about a lot on the prepper and disaster preparedness sites is the necessity for communication. This tends to range from simple radios for short range, two way communications to full blow HAM radio setups. They also include emergency and weather radios for picking up important news bulletins or weather reports. Of course, this only works with small to mid sized disasters where its possible for radios are still functional, the cell networks as well, and other such things.

In a world wide total societal and technological collapse, these would be useful for a while, but would ultimately fail after a given time, leaving the society with just old fashioned manual communication methods, and a rather primitive postal service similar to what was seen in the movie "The Postman". Of course, this assumes a disaster situation such as volcanic/nuclear winter, a major population dieoff due to disease, asteroid impact, etc where the ability to maintain and perpetuate modern communication will be nigh on impossible. Sure, it'll last a while, but as time goes on it'll break down and stop working all together. On top of that, power quickly becomes an issue in the long term, and even hand cranked generators and the like only last so long. So without reliable power, electronic communications quickly grind to a halt.

Case in point, I ran into a book that just recently was published (don't ask me the name, as I've forgotten it already) where it's 200 years post apocalypse and society has settled in to a Swartzentruber Amish style way of living. From what I understand from the story, within 20 years of the disaster all modern technology that required power had died off or been abandoned, leaving people living 1801 style lives where only the most basic, sometimes mechanical technologies survived. The rest were either abandoned or replaced with older style systems. One of the things that came back in full force usage was the postal service. From what I understood from the story, a pony rider would come into each village or town about once a week, or sometimes every two, and he'd bring a couple saddle bags full of letters, and a few packages for the locals.

What was even funnier was how big packages and shipments of goods traveled. In the post disaster time period, a Fedex/UPS style package shipment system had arisen based around a "carting/caravan" method of trade and transport. (the "carting" reference is ala Pern, fyi) That I actually thought was quite hilarious. In the book it's 200 years post disaster, and yet you can still "fedex" something from one village or country to another via wagon, or boat if it's far enough away. lol. That totally cracked me up.

In lesser disasters though, like earthquakes, fire, etc, modern communications, such as radios, cell phones, and possibly even computers, would be a huge element, not only in disaster assessment, but also recovery. But once the disaster surpasses a certain point, it ceases to be a recovery tool and becomes little more than a long distance means of correspondence with friends and family. Well, once the dust has settled and some degree of normality has returned. Until then communication over distance is rather pointless, except for the most extreme needs.