What this blog is for
S.I.E.R.R.A now has a blog. Before anything else, it is worth being clear about what belongs here — and what does not.
Two channels
The Live Feed is the fast channel. It pulls wildfire, evacuation, weather, and road information from official sources — CAL FIRE, NWS Sacramento, Cal OES, CHP — and refreshes continuously. When something is happening in the Calaveras or Tuolumne foothills right now, that is the page to have open.
This blog is the slow channel. It is written, not streamed, and it is only published when there is something genuinely worth your time. During an active incident this blog goes quiet on purpose: a post is stale the moment it is published, and stale information during an emergency is worse than none.
What to expect here
- Technology worth understanding. Developments in mesh networking, LoRa (the long-range, low-power radio technology our relays use), amateur radio, and emergency communications — and what they mean for an off-grid network in canyon terrain like ours.
- Lessons from other communities. When a community mesh network or a volunteer radio net carries real traffic through a real disaster somewhere else, there is usually something worth learning for the Highway 4 and Highway 49 corridors.
- Seasonal preparedness. Fire-season communication checklists, power-shutoff readiness, winter storm preparation — specific to our towns, timed to when they matter.
- Retrospectives. After a storm, shutoff, or fire near the two counties has fully concluded: what happened, and what it showed about communications resilience.
- Explainers. How a mesh survives when cell towers do not, how to read the Live Feed, how evacuation zones work, and the paths into amateur radio and GMRS.
What not to expect
No breaking news — the Live Feed exists so this page never has to pretend to be fast. No hype, no countdown-clock urgency, and no post that could have appeared on any preparedness site in the country. If a week passes without a post, that is the system working: an infrequent blog of useful posts builds more trust than a daily feed of filler.
Posts run short by design — a few minutes of reading, one useful idea each.
Curious about the network itself? Start with the mesh page, or get in touch — the alliance is built entirely by volunteers, and there is room for more.