Meshtastic

I've been taking CERT disaster relief (DR) classes, put on by the city at the local fire department (we live in an area prone to earthquake, flood, and fire). The subject of communications came up and they mentioned walkie talkies in neighborhood caches, but nobody had any idea about models, ranges, etc.

Been casually looking at Meshtastic and keep seeing it mentioned for DR, but haven't come across any actual guides or implementations. For example, I can set up a router in my house, but there's no guarantee it will be standing during a fire, or if power will remain during an earthquake.

There are lots of questions (tech, redundancy, battery backups, range, node placement, while on-the-move, temporary setups, gateways to cell and cloud, etc). Was hoping someone had already figured it out so I wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel. This would be first for my own neighborhood, then expand to city or county-wide services.

I've got another CERT class coming up next week and will ask the Fire Department folks for tips/advice as well, but thought I'd ask here about Meshtastic and maybe point them at some resources, if asked.

For research, am making my way through posts on the Meshtastic site and read the Burning Man report. Also checked out Meshmap in my area (only two routers, one on top of a mountain, but possibly on the back side of it).

FWIW, background in tech, have a ton of ESP32s, RPis, and a few LoRa boards sitting around. Was looking at getting the T-Deck, but am going to hold off until I have a proper plan on what to do with it. Also want to document the process so hopefully come up with a reusable plan. Mainly looking for tips where to look next. TIA.