For use in emergency situations, even to disastrous levels, do you really need a phone card in an Disaster Preparedness Kit (72+ Hour Kit, BOB, etc)?

Assuming pay phones work or regular lines, where you need something to get long distance on, can't you still:

1. Call Collect? Is there any reason that wouldn't work when a phone card would?
2. How about a Credit Card based call?

Also a stupid question: I honestly don't even know if you can use one of the prepaid phone cards on a pay phone. Can you dial the toll free numbers on them without inserting physical money? You get the idea of my stupid question here.

Thanks for the feedback.
GoatMan