If you want long-range contacts, in a disaster / lockdown, 27 MHz CB voice has no rivals that don't require a ham license.
My LoRa experiments have been with #reticulum rather than #meshtastic, but I've never gotten better than about 300m in this hilly, built up area.
CB is way too expensive to form a good network on, especially since it's kinda useless outside of a disaster in the US - you're always at risk of being fined or arrested or shot if you use it to transmit a long-range signal here, except in times of emergency where rules are relaxed.
The FCC uses selective enforcement of power limits to let some people run CB jammers that destroy range nationwide, while being able to target others for using any amps powerful enough to talk over the jammers.
MURS gets better range here when staying in "allowed" power limits.
I still love CB because you can pick up people from thousands of miles away, and once in a while on the roads you can find someone close enough to talk both ways with them.
