I also sent messages back and forth with one of my friends who lives in Jacksonville, Florida and we chatted about what she was doing to protect herself and whether she was going to try to get out of town before the storm hit.

I imagine a Zello channel like this is invaluable when someone can’t access tv or the internet. While I listened to this channel I heard people asking questions about road closures, whether pets can be taken in with their owners at an emergency shelter (they can) and whether hotels are required to take pets (they are.) Those conversations are moderated by someone in the group and if anyone connects to share some nonsense or to troll on the group, the moderator will kick them out so they cannot listen in on the group again. Listening to that channel is a lot like listening to an old CB radio. Friday afternoon I found a Hurricane Irma South Florida group with several hundred members. People and organizations can create groups or channels where the messages go out to only people who are following the group. It really is like you’re talking to them on a walkie-talkie. The communication reminds me more of a text message than phone call. It’s sent immediately to your contact who can listen now or later when they log onto the app. When you you tap the circle you’re recording a message. To send a voice message you tap on your contact then on a large circle that takes up almost all of the space in the opened app. Zello claims in just the past few days over 1-million people downloaded the app and it currently sits atop the most downloaded app rankings in both iTunes and the Google Play Store. Zello has been around for several years but since Hurricane Harvey the number of downloads have quadrupled or more. It’s billed as a ‘walkie-talkie’ app where people can communicate with each other during a natural disaster or other event that affects internet data connections. You’ve probably seen or heard something about a messaging app called Zello the past few days.

Zello shared messages