It would depend on the area but I would bet most households will have either a laptop with wifi or a smart phone. Households with children or teenagers will almost certainly have laptops AND smartphones. As someone has mentioned, I think the biggest problem would not be access to the network but power to recharge the batteries. Of course you could always set up a 12V SLA community charging station that is constantly topped off with a solar panel and charge controller. That and a set of battery clamps with a 12V cigarette plug (and an inverter for laptops) could keep you running indefinitely.

While it's an interesting idea, it's a complicated one...which means there is a lot that can go wrong.

I mean, first it requires that you set it up so it works reliably, works during the worst of conditions, and has a signal strong enough to reach multiple homes. From there it requires every house to have the required devices and the knowledge how to use them. This can be especially tough if they don't have a way to keep them powered or run into a problem where their device fails in some way (say, if it gets wet during a flood).

Depending on the information you are trying to disseminate, it might end up being and easier and more reliable system just to stick to printed leaflets. Especially since a neighborhood setting means people are living relatively close to each other.

What I would do is start out by giving everyone in your neighborhood a nice bound notebook with the majority of pertinent emergency preparedness information. Then just supplement it as necessary with hand delivered fliers. It's a much simpler system and it doesn't required complicated equipment to use it. If necessary, it doesn't really require any technology beyond a piece of paper, a pen, and a messenger boy to make it work.

(On a side note, for the initial binder at least, I would make sure to either use rite-in-rain style paper and a laser printer or have the pages laminated. This way, they'll be durable and water-proof...which is something a computer typically isn't.)

OS X comes with apache and php built in, so you have the basics for web serving already available, assuming you want to leave a computer connected to your wireless. There are several free solutions available (XAMPP or MAMP to name a couple) for a more complete solution. I'm pretty sure there are similar solutions available for Windows or Linux. Biggest downsides to this approach is the extra power required to keep a computer running in addition to your wireless and a bit more setup/maintenance effort.

A lot of this boils down to what service are you trying to provide. If all you want is a simple file server (file sharing), a wireless router that can share attached USB devices (like the airport extreme or the other one mentioned above) is probably good enough. Most wireless routers will let you setup a guest account and honor file permissions on attached devices. In OS X with an Airport Extreme it is very easy to setup a DropBox folder with write only permissions along with a read only information folder. I just tried this using my personal setup and then connected to it using my work laptop (Windows XP) with no problems at all.

Range will be an issue with any Wifi system. 802.11g can reach about 300' outdoors while 802.11n can maybe reach twice that. Indoor ranges are maybe half the outdoor range. Differences between individual routers are fairly minor since the driving factor will probably be your computers capabilities/limitations. A non-standard, standard called WDS does allow additional base stations to repeat a wireless network. Interoperability between brands of routers/access points is a problem. Several years ago I used an Airport Express to extend a Linksys wireless network for internet access and file sharing though other services didn't work through the Airport Express. Check with your neighbors and see what they have/try it out, you might find enough compatible routers to cover the area.

I think the simple approach would probably be best, though the engineer in me leans to the more complicated (i.e. fun) web solution.

-Eric

I think Paul810 has the best idea. Keep it simple.

We have discussed something similar in my area. My neighbors range from young, tech-savvy couples to older, retired folks that still pine for their old rotary phone. It would be a huge task to get everyone up to speed on a network and have back-up power / batteries.

As an alternative, the idea of a pen-drive or thumb-drive with the information on it seems an easier idea. Plus, it gives everyone the chance for some face-to-face contact during the update process.

I use a neighborhood network daily. Using it now as a matter of fact. We winter in a desert area in Southern AZ. There is a wi-fi node in a building about half a mile from me. It is nothing special except it has a directional antenna mounted on top of a one story building.

Most of the users (probably 50 or more) also use some sort of directional antenna. Some are 3/4 miles from the node. Works fine.

None of us have grid power, all solar. The node is on the grid.

We don't use it as a local network, although we could. Just wi-fi to the internet.

Nomad.

In the absence of directional antennas or mesh wireless you'd be lucky to get a range of more than 100 yards. Improving the base station antenna has only limited efficacy, as bidirectional communication is required to pass packets. Similarly, increasing power at the base station has almost no effect on range.

The fifty dollar license would probably fulfill your needs. You won't need more than five people to collaborate on building the site. Viewers without editing powers are not limited; they don't count in the five. If I understood the guy correctly at MacWorld, you can allow comments with unlimited users that don't count against the five collaborators.

His point about why iServer is worth the fifty bucks has some merits. As another has said, sure you can do it with freely available software, but with iServer it's plug and play. Install the software and you're set to go, more or less. You don't kneed to know Apache, PHP, or any of the other apps you need to hook together. I'm sure this is trivially easy for many people, but I'm uninterested in getting under the hood to build a server.

I stand corrected!

The Issue I have with this kinda thinking is it easily alienates People Who either cannot afford such things or do not wish to have such things for their own personal reasons. The Groupthink that just cuz most people you know has one everyone on earth has one is just bullocks. The last thing you wanna do For emergency purposes is automatically Think you know what everyone in your neighborhood owns.

I see your point, but really this is just a thought exercise.

A lot of people have this gear, so it's worth exploring. Is it possible? Does it add value? Maybe in Blast's local neighbourhood, it does. In others, not so much. Though if someone has a connection to the outside world, others will definitely be interested.

Given that many neighbours have never spoken to each other, a community BBQ with hot dogs and handshakes might actually be the smart tech solution, or at least the starting point. And if they're interested in some hardcore (and carefully disclaimered) info, the ability to share and discuss would be brilliant. And from there, a volunteer corps steps up ....

Note that there are no bears or lawyers in our scenario.