In 2024 alone, 395 natural disasters tore across the globe, killing 16,000 people, displacing over 12 million, and inflicting $320 billion in economic losses. From the flooded streets of Jakarta to the scorched hills of California, no one was immune. Asia endured heatwaves that claimed 5,000 lives, Africa faced droughts leaving 25 million without water, and the United States weathered storms so destructive that damages topped $100 billion in a single season.

These aren’t rare events, they’re relentless. The United Nations warns that by 2030, the world could see 560 major disasters every year, a staggering rise fueled by climate change and crumbling infrastructure. We are sleepwalking into a future where disasters are hitting us harder and more often, and our infrastructure is not keeping pace with the reality of the climate crisis. Entire cities are plunged into darkness and silence just when help is needed most. Hospitals grind to a halt. Emergency calls go unanswered. Families are cut off, unable to find help or each other.

This isn’t a distant threat. It’s happening now, everywhere. And when disaster strikes, the world as we know it ends, one community at a time.

Natural disasters routinely expose the fragility of the systems we depend on most—power grids, telecommunications, and critical infrastructure. When these lifelines fail, the consequences for affected communities can be devastating.

Extreme weather calamities like hurricanes, wildfires, ice storms, and heatwaves frequently cripple power grids. Outages are often triggered not by a lack of electricity, but by damage to transmission and distribution lines from wind, flooding, or falling trees. During the 2021 Texas freeze, nearly 5 million people lost power for four days, with tragic outcomes as the grid buckled under simultaneous failures in supply and delivery. “We were left to fend for ourselves, burning furniture to stay warm,” one Houston resident told The New York Times. Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico caused the longest blackout in U.S. history, lasting up to 270 days for some residents and destroying 95% of cell towers. “It was like living in the 1800s,” recalled San Juan resident Maria Rodriguez to NPR. “No power, no water, no way to call for help.”

Aging infrastructure and lack of resilience planning compound these risks, leaving millions in the dark when they most need light and heat. The U.S. Department of Energy warns that more than half of American infrastructure is at risk from natural hazards.

When power fails, so do communications. Cell towers, reliant on electricity and backup fuel, quickly go offline. After Hurricane Maria, 95% of Puerto Rico’s cell towers were destroyed, isolating communities for weeks and causing communication failure rates as high as 90%. In Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, toppled towers and damaged cables left survivors unable to call for help or check on loved ones. “We felt completely abandoned,” said survivor Jean-Baptiste Pierre to Reuters. Even when infrastructure survives, networks become overloaded: after disasters in the Netherlands and New York, call volumes spiked, causing up to 90% of calls to fail as systems buckled under demand.

The collapse of communications systems doesn’t just affect residents, it paralyzes emergency response. During Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans 911 system was down for days, and agencies struggled to coordinate without interoperable radios or unified reporting systems. In wildfires and other emergencies, incompatible equipment and lost radio towers have left first responders unable to relay life-saving information. “We were flying blind,” said a Louisiana emergency manager to The Washington Post. “We couldn’t talk to our own teams, let alone coordinate with the state.”

Disasters often hit the most vulnerable communities hardest, deepening inequalities. “The poorest always suffer the most,” said World Bank disaster risk specialist Francis Ghesquiere. “They have the least protection and the hardest recovery.” And when official systems fail, people turn to whatever works—social media, radio, and word-of-mouth. In Haiti, survivors and diaspora used local radio to share news and check on families. After Maria, Puerto Ricans drove for hours seeking a signal, relying on community networks more than formal channels. “We became our own first responders,” said community leader Carmen Yulín Cruz. “Neighbors helping neighbors, using whatever tools we had left.”

Disasters consistently reveal the limits of centralized, traditional infrastructure. Power and communications networks, vital for safety, rescue, and recovery are often the first to fail, leaving communities isolated and vulnerable. The numbers are only rising: more disasters, more damage, more lives upended. Building resilience means not just hardening infrastructure, but empowering local, flexible, and redundant ways to stay connected when it matters most. The world is ending, we need to prepare.

Unlike traditional infrastructure, mesh networks don’t rely on a single point of failure. Instead, every device becomes both a user and a node, passing messages along until they reach their destination. This decentralized approach means that even if the grid is down and the internet is out, people can still connect, coordinate, and help each other.

This is the vision behind Offline Protocol and our messaging app: a world where no disaster, blackout, or shutdown can sever the bonds between people. By harnessing the power of mesh networking, we’re building tools that let communities stay connected—no matter what. With Offline Protocol, your phone isn’t just a device; it’s a lifeline, a beacon, and a bridge to those around you.

Download our messaging app, Fernweh. iOS download. Android download.

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