Ham Radio Helped Save Lives After Hurricane Helene Communication Failures
July 20, 2026
Tropical storm Helene
Sep 2024
amateur “ham” radio that provided a critical connection to the outside world
over 1,700 miles of fiber optic cable was lost or destroyed
many of the region’s cell towers were knocked over
Even three weeks after the storm, thousands of people still hadn’t gotten their electricity back
As cellphones and the internet became more popular over the years, radio’s popularity dwindled
“There’s a lot of typically older gentlemen in ham radio,” Hamel said, “and they practice a lot of gatekeeping.”
Broadband companies do not have to — nor will they — essentially show you the map of where the infrastructure is
there are places that these providers did not build back because the infrastructure they had to those homes was never profitable
although public officials had thought systems were redundant — or had ample backup in case of disaster — many of them actually shared the same infrastructure
resilience hubs
There’s no government push to do anything
