Oh yes, pull the other one. If anyone wants to send me a new shack I'll
promise to send a post card. Emergency work should be left to
professionals
paid to do the job. They can quite often do without people getting under
their feet and in the way! There is an amateur/CB group in the UK that
causes a bit of annoyance like that, people must just like dressing up as
pretend police men. The public take absolutely no notice, and
amateurs/CBers don't either.

In the US the hams are not doing the actual emergency work. We are used to
provide communications for the services. Without power or the ability of
some services to communicate with others or long range communications , the
'professional services' tend to need help in communicating.

As someone else pointed out , in many areas of the country the volunteers
are all we have for fire protection and emergency medical service and
transportation. I live in a rural area and appreciate the ones that provide
this service. It may or may not be as good as a paid service but it is all
I have .