Thanks to everyone who responded. I sincerely appreciate it.

FRS = very limited in power and range. Antenna must be permanently fixed to the radio, no range boost by better antenna allowed. Question is whether anyone around her has FRS. Is she in the boonies? Does she have neighbors within line of sight? If yes, maybe she can give them a radio and ask them to turn it on in case of an incident.

GMRS = better than FRS, there are repeaters that might or might not have emergency power, don't know story about acess to the repeaters, license is required ($75/5 years or something like that). No license test, just pay fee.

Ham = repeaters maybe more likely than GMRS to have emergency power, license is free but there is a multiple choice test, external antennas are fine, and if an old lady transmits "I'm on my grandson's radio and I need an ambulance at XYZ address" no one will care if she has no license.

Other possibilities = satellite phone or 2-way pager (yes, pagers are still a thing). These will have monthly subscription fees but maybe she will think they are worth it.

With all of the above, make sure to set up and test ahead of time.

I don't know the situation of cell phone services in emergencies these days. Cell towers do often have backup power, and in times of network congestions where you can't make a voice call, you can often get text messages through. I have felt for a while that the carriers should prioritize this and reserve a little bandwidth for emergency texts, that would otherwise go to mobile data = youtube on your cell phone.

For ham and GPRS repeaters, look at repeaterbook.com to find repeaters near her home, but again, make sure to check access policies and if possible, test ahead of time.

If your friend is thinking about using a handheld radio from inside her house (I don't care if it's FRS or GMRS or CB or HAM), she will get just about equivalent range by walking down her street hollering for anybody who happens to be around. And the advantage of the "walk and holler" approach is that she will have many more potential contacts than over a radio.

Now, you can improve range by learning about radio transmissions and installing an appropriate outdoor high-gain antenna. GMRS repeaters are generally few and far between in my experience. I am in the Denver area (suburbs, basically), and there are no GMRS repeaters here that I know of. There are HAM repeaters galore. Hit or miss hitting one of those from inside the house with a handheld (you can hear fine usually, but not trigger them for transmit). Outside with a decent antenna - no problem. HAM repeater use is nowhere near what it once was, but during an emergency I imagine there will be lots of people available for contact. Assuming the repeaters have power.

An FRS handheld from inside your house might be able to talk to your neighbor across the street inside their house, but that's about it. Outside, you might get 1/2 a mile to a mile if you're lucky and don't have hills and other obstructions.

While my "walk and holler" comment above might sound like a joke, it is probably the better and more reliable communication technique for non-radio enthusiasts who don't want to obtain a license and learn about feedlines, antennas (and their need for lightning protection), and such. The actual radio will be the least expensive part of the setup. You could do quite well with a handheld if you upgrade its antenna and walk to a hilltop overlooking a populated valley with other radio enthusiasts (you can't upgrade an FRS radios antenna). But unless you live on that hilltop - if you have to walk to it - might as well just walk and holler.

just a comment about CB range... in the late 70s I had a relatively modest CB base station.. it was a Cobra 21 mobile transceiver, powered by a Radio Shack 12vdc regulated power supply... the key part of the system as commented was the antenna... it was a 1/2 wave Shakespeare "Big Stick) length adjusted to give very close to a 1:1 SWR... it was mounted on a 20' mast and grounded with a 4'copper ground rod... on flat coastal Florida I could get 12mile reliable to a similarly equipped base station, and about 4miles to a mobile unit with a Cobra 21 and 1/4 wave stainless whip, bumper mounted...

about 2 miles reliable communication between our similarly powered autos... I had a 1/4 base load magnetic mount in the center of the roof to the 1/4 wave stainless whip

today, with side band available, the range should be somewhat improved... regards

It may be useful to know what the person in the original post expects from whatever radio device she decides on. For example, does she think of the device as some sort of "special 911" that she can count on for help in emergencies?

For the average person, there are three options:

FRS/GMRS radios. UHF band. These can be very good over very short distances; however, although GMRS is technically a licensed service, virtually no one actually gets licensed, and the transceivers are sold everywhere, so it’s complete chaos during times when people attempt to use the service en masse. Although GMRS repeaters theoretically exist, I’ve never heard of anyone actually operating one.

CB radio. HF band. Also unlicensed, also somewhat chaotic, but not as popular as it once was. CB operates in the 11-meter HF band, so even though you are limited by law to medium range comms, signals can travel much further than you might intend.

Amateur Radio. HF/VHF/UHF bands. A licensed service, the test is fairly easy to pass to get a Technician Class license, a second slightly harder test for General Class, and a much harder test for Expert Class. Repeaters all over the place in mainly the 2 m VHF and 70 cm UHF bands, and depending on your area, possibly still a fairly active enthusiast community.

An Amateur Radio Operator license will give you the widest range of options and the most powerful equipment options. Many good handheld transceivers from Kenwood, Yaesu, Icom, and others. Equipment is capable of communicating globally, if you take the time to construct a good antenna system. Definitely the best option in times of natural disasters where widespread communications outages have occurred.

The problem with radios is, they are useless unless there’s someone else with a radio to talk to you.

The ARRL every year holds a competition we call “Field Day”, which is an exercise in readiness for emergency communications. I used to be a member of K2AA in New Jersey, and we regularly took first place in our class on Field Day.

You get extra points for running your radio equipment on emergency power, which helps encourage operators to invest in that sort of gear. So, there are a lot of hams out there who will definitely be able to run repeaters and transceivers in the aftermath of disasters.

K2AA owns several military surplus 50’ antenna towers (I think the AB-577 model?) that we can have up and running in a very short period of time. They break down into a bundle that fits in a pickup truck, about 8’ long, weighing about 300 lbs. They will hold some big honking antennas. We would choose a remote site show up the day before with RVs and tents and generators and computers and set up for the weekend.

My area has a few GMRS repeaters but they’re all “closed” — if the owner hasn’t given specific permission you’re not allowed to use them. And a minor nit: ham radio’s top class of license in the US is “Extra”.

Yes, "Extra", I mistyped that. Probably because I haven't bothered to study to take the Extra Class examination.