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A few years back a fifth grader I think it was summoned National Park Rangers with his handheld HAM Radio likely VHF. It was in The Great Smoky Mountains Park. His class was on a field trip to a waterfalls which was about a four mile walk round trip. Cell phones will not get out in that area due to terrain. I've been to that water fall several times myself.

The event was tragic as one of his classmates had fallen in the creek and drowned in a deep pool with some very strong undercurrents. He managed to hit a repeater and in doing so got help too them much sooner.

But even if a person doesn't have a license monitoring is legal and you can gain valuable knowledge in times of crisis like tornado watches and warnings etc. You'll likely get the warning a minute or two before the weather alert tone goes out to activate weather radios. Weather Wathers {Sky Warn} uses HAM.

Don't throw away your old Analog TV outdoor antenna. Put them too good use. It makes a great outdoor scanner antenna and can increase you monitoring in some cases several hundred miles depending on the frequency. You can also use a 10-20 DB 50-950 MHZ TV signal amplifier with it. You will have to modify the mounting to make the elements lay vertical instead of horizontal but it does work reasonably well.

I haven't had my scanners on since last summer but you can get a lot of heads up. In event of state or area natural disasters HAM will likely be the first communications in and out. Many State Emergency Management Agencies have used and/or monitored HAM as does NOAA.