True. The issue in New Orleans, though, was that the 911 call center was under water - it was uninhabitable, inoperable, and had no outside connectivity, so attempts to transfer operability failed and callers didn't know it. Eventually calls to 911 in NO were routed to Baton Rouge, but no one told Baton Rouge about it, and the onslaught of callers was unexpected.

We've got portable repeaters in one of our ham clubs, but I'm expecting things to go bad for longer than emergency gas and batteries for repeaters will last, if we have an NO-style earthquake. My hope with HF radio is that we can communicate with the outside world, pass some health and welfare traffic, and maybe get some attention when search and rescue people can actually get here.