If your family has to evacuate – who is your common contact person? In other words, if your brothers family, your mom and dad, and your family has to evacuate, who is outside the affected area that can relay messages?

There is no use in everyone calling everyone else and telling them where they are at. Call one person, update your situation and location. Then, that one person can relay everyone else’s messages. Then, if someone wants to get the updates, they can call that one person to check in.

One thing to consider is that during a disaster (such as a hurricane), phone lines will be overloaded. The fewer phone calls you have to make, the better.

Besides phone calls, other forms of communications are text messages, emails, instant messenger programs, and social networking sites.

Maybe create your family a community page on a social networking site – then share the username and password with the other family members. Instead of having to call several family units, post an update to your social networking page. This can give the families a central point to share information. Most modern cell phones are built in browsers. As long as the cell phone can connect to the internet, hopefully everyone can post situation updates.

My family has 3 different people in 3 different areas of the nation we can use. These three people live in Washington state, California and Georgia. We also have our personal pages on facebook and myspace.

Please post your comments in the contact list and communications thread of the forum.