Where I live, when the tree came down on my house, it was the first of what ended up being hundreds upon hundreds of trees coming down, and not only did it take out our land lines and cell sites, it also took out the back-haul wires from the repeater site that linked my area to the country 911 dispatch center. That meant that the county emergency radio I had was also inoperative except for local (1 mile or less) point-to-point communications. Redundancy is good. We should all do redundancy and offline options for communications. I wish CB radio was still a rational option, it's got rural reach, equipment simplicity, and ultra-low cost, and I don't have to rely on the ham operators to be the "licensed operator" but every time I suggest CB Radio be used in our emergency communications plans, I get a smirk and a "10-4 Good Buddy" smart-a$$ comment.