I would have to know how the Rapid Radios work before I dumped money into them. Sounds too good to be true. Some of the Hams here use satellite to communicate with folks on the North Slope since there is no cell service--or there wasn't last time I checked. They use a dual band handi-talkie and make an antenna from old aluminum arrows that are not used for archery much any more. They can fold the antenna and carry it in their car or even on their person. When I lived in the Bush here, we used to communicate with Russian people via CW (Morse Code). They were incredible with their code as most did not have the money to voice radios. Most Americans use voice communications, but code works better in distress situations. However most of us have lost the ability to use it. The other down side with a big rig like Yvonne's son has is that you would need an antenna to transmit, although you can often receive nearby people without a big aerial, and those sometimes cost hundreds of dollars as well. The neatest set up I have ever heard about was a guy I talked with over the radio who was in his car using a 2 meter radio to communicate with his HF radio at his home. He could use a repeater to get to his home set and "transfer" his communications to the HF set to talk with Alaska, Israel and other places. He could even turn his Yagi antenna from his car. A Yagi antenna is a directional antenna that any Ham would know about. The last time I was in the Yukon territory, they had an extensive repeater network that allowed communications throughout the territory from a car rig and sometimes from a hand held radio. It was really neat, as there was essentially no cell communication through the sparsely-populated area.
If you have a group of friends you wish to stay in touch with, get together and hash out what the best means of communication would be. Don't rely on cell phones, however, as the cell networks are incredibly fragile in some emergencies.
It doesn't take much hardware and software today to handle text-to-Morse and vice versa. Such a thing could easily be packed with a screen and keyboard in a laptop form factor, then just plug the send and receive lines into a radio transceiver. Add a little more computing power and a software-defined radio (SDR) chip and you could easily design a "laptop" only needing an antenna, and optionally an external RF linear amplifier for more transmit power. Even a pretty cheap PC/laptop can manage translation between text and radio telegraphy code though.
One example. There are probably newer and more versatile alternatives out there as well. https://www.dxsoft.com/en/products/cwtype/ Ahh, I stand corrected. Instead of relying on audio lines simple switching can key the transmitter. It looks like in this case a separate program handles receive translation.
Keep in mind that I'm not suggesting anything illegal or interfering. "Illegal" operation like high power or transmitting on frequencies normally not permitted to the user or violating usage restrictions by broadcasting would only be for serious emergencies where normal rules break down. Most of those Baofeng products are so wildly non-compliant I'm not sure I'd suggest that even a licensed ham with less than a full General class license or better own one. There are a lot of "appliance operators" out there who basically only bought themselves a Technician class license with a rather low knowledge bar to entry. Sorry hams, I don't mean to cast shade on anyone. I'd be the last one to lord over anybody on radio topics.
I think there are levels of it. Hurricanes, wildfires, flooding, massive blizzards, lengthy power outages might get so chaotic locally or regionally that alternative communication may be valuable but not justify deviation from regulations on radio equipment use. Then there is the issue of drill and practice and/or system "health" testing or even messaging such as organizational communications for the network. In normal times we'd want something that isn't going to get this network dismantled and regulated against specifically. There is also the issue of getting good will and broader civilian participation by providing something of value such as communication assistance in smaller-scale emergency scenarios. But if cellular service and Internet access disappeared, then yeah we'd probably be wading in stuff deep enough to justify something more marginal than completely "legal" operations.
I made no special preparations for a major catastrophe, just minor. I have 3 gallons of water in the basement and 3 in the kitchen which I needed when the water company fixed a leaking pipe which led to muddy water, and a couple battery powered radios. If no exceptional tragedies have occurred to me by now, I don't anticipate any in the future. If things ever hit the fan though , you know we can always rely on the gummint.
I posted a number of years ago about a wildfire here. EMS and the fire departments had all switched to cell communications for convenience and security. We had a bad wildfire that devastated the area, and there was no electricity or cell communications as the towers largely burned. They had to put out an emergency call to Ham operators locally as the old radios for the fire department had all been packed away or thrown away as they weren't needed any longer. It doesn't take a national catastrophe to isolate you. Our land line phones still worked, and we could listen via battery-powered radios. The fire department and EMS have never gone back to all-cellular since that experience.
I never went for the classes, probably stupid, but I could still do it at some point. It was the little hand-held type, not HAM though. Still they would be something at least. I would just use them for emergency though because I heard you get all kind of bullshit from people that use them. It would be my luck to hook up with obnoxious people. At least online (as long as our internet stays up) we can pick and choose who we have to listen to Another sad thing to me is how there has to be a total disaster before people are let's call them "good neighbors". City folk walk by 1000 of people, maybe even in a day, and never speak or get to know anyone. I don't think our country folks are much like things used to be either. Mainly because filthy rich City Folk buy land and build mansions amongst the country folk, YUCK!! My beautiful Lookingglass Valley where I was born on and old, sheep ranch, has all gone to the rich, or a lot of it anyway
I suppose Smoke Signals wouldn't go over to big, especially in Summer-time America's become too spoiled with all the technology, and I've got plenty of the bells & whistle gadgets myself