We live in Texas, and at least twice in the last few years both telephone and cell phone communication have ceased to function when a tornado was in the area. My wife's work is approximately 25 miles away from my work, and home is about 25/30 miles from the respective places of employment. I need a way to reliably communicate with her during times when phone systems are not available. Ideas?

take a weekend ham lisencing course. The entry level Ham operators lisence can be had without learning Morse Code and it is easy to pass the test at the end of a one day class. This will allow you to operate Amateur radio on vhf and uhf frequencies. A couple of hand held amateur vhf radios will cost about $100 or so each and you will be able to communicate Line-Of-Sight for 10 - 30 miles or better from your radio to your wives. This has the advantage that you won't be overwhelmed by congestion in the cell tower. This has the added advantage that the Hams are the first source of reliable information on the weather and disaster relief agency efforts. Hams participating in the SkyWarn organization are the source for the local eye witness storm tracking used by NOAA. Fema relies upon Amateur radio operators in the ARES organization for emergency communications during disasters. If you are a Ham you get the chance to participate and the lisence to use the frequencies to communicate with your family. If you get a mobile unit in your car your range could be 100's of miles in flat locations such as most of TX. Handheld family radios are limited to something under a watt of power. Handheld Ham radios are not limited except that you wouldn't want more than 5 - 7 watts right next to your face. Mobile rigs often run 35 - 50 watts and 100 watts can be done but again you might not want to stand that close to a 100 watt antenna. Communications are not cheap, reliable communications during disasters are priceless. If you can afford the class and a couple of handhelds I can't imagine an occasion when you wouldn't be able to contact your wife either directly or through other hams. Of course you need to both get lisenced.

Thank you for the information.

I second MiniMe's recommendations:

Check out the ARRL's new ham area

and its Find an exam any state

or for Texas Exams

HAM radio is dependable and reliable communication link to family, friends and other HAMs that can usually get first hand information to you and/or link you to others that can assist.

I recommend you also look into your local communities HAM repeater groups and emergency communication groups.

You probably have one or more local groups that could assist you in the exams, and give you a general outline of the most active radio bands and repeaters.

Here is a list of the 119 radio clubs in Texas

Taking the exam with your wife is a fun activity and like MiniMe said easy. 25 mile communication is possible without a repeater depending on the terrain, your gears operating power and antenna. Communicaton through a repeater is very easy at this distance.

Around here 2m band is the good choice for active repeaters, and terrain issues. I would recommend a 2m radio or a multiband radio with 2m and 70cm (and 6m or 1.2GHz depending on what is hot in your area). I would look for 5W output for handhelds to give you greater chance to transmit 25 miles. I would also recommend a 5/8 wave antenna for any handheld rig, and an external antenna for the car. Some of the smallest handhelds are real nice to carry but do not have 5W output on their normal battery. A mobil rig (car) would be great with 20-50W output and a nice roof mounted antenna.