Talking to Tom Jackson, President of Midwest Paging in Joplin, Missouri, you can't miss the edge of emotion as he describes what he saw and retells the stories of death and destruction following the horrid Joplin tornado. He was in the thick of things because his company provides paging services to the bulk of the emergency personnel, hospital and first responders who were responsible for coming to the aid and assistance of the citizens of Joplin when the massive tornado devastated their town last Spring.

For many people in this country right now, pagers seem like an archaic and out-of-date technology which should be replaced by smart phones that contain all the bells and whistles. However, Joplin is just one example of the absolute necessity for pagers and how they proved once again to be the most reliable and dependable messaging system for those on the front lines and caught in this monster tornado and other deadly natural disasters.

When the tornado hit Joplin, cell phone towers which cover approximately 2-4 miles per tower, were taken down. Estimates of the number of towers destroyed range from 13-20, which rendered cell service virtually useless and non-existent in the pit of the destruction. In contrast, Midwest Paging had two towers, one on top of the hospital and another tower several miles away. Unlike cell phone towers, paging towers can be located 25-30 miles away from the site they cover which provides the security of less terrestrial failure in these weather catastrophes. Even if the two closest towers to the hospital had been destroyed, the paging system would have remained functional from the remote transmitters.

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