A VPN during a network outage

After a flood, fire, or similar outage, people share whatever Wi-Fi or mobile link is still up. Those links are often open, congested, or run by someone you cannot identify.

If the link can reach the internet, a VPN encrypts the path from your device to the VPN server. Messages you send through it are not readable on that local hop. If the link is down, the VPN has nothing to connect to.

A VPN is not a substitute for a charged battery, an offline copy of the numbers you need, or the official advice for the incident. It also does not bypass a network that is simply switched off.