Echoing the theme, I feel very confident that in a serious emergency, I would have a higher probability of reaching someone reliably with my limited Ham gear than with my cell phone. We are on the coast, and often lose power, and phone service. When we lose phones, sometimes the cell network is useless, you can't make a call it's so overloaded. On the other hand, with the repeater networks around the country, you can probably hit a repeater with a 5watt HT from virtually any even modestly populated area. (Of course, you have to have a repeater guide handy to know the Freq's)Interestingly, the folks who manage/support the repeaters, are often some of the most prepared folks in the area. Between battery and generator backups, the repeaters are virtually up 24x7 regardless of what's going on with local power and phone service. Many of them are active in RACES
and ARES in the community, so they are typically aligned with the local EMS system.

In a TEOTWAWKI scenario, I'll have my old Kenwood HF rig running. Even with a basic wire dipole, it'd keep me in touch with the world. It even runs on 12 VDC, so I could go mobile with it if needed.