[RSBob]

As a former “wireless”telecom employee, I learned on the job that in a disaster cell towers are setup to run on generators up to a week, which is the average time it takes to restore power. However, if power, roads, etc are out longer than that they will run out of diesel. In that event, land lines will still work and you will still be able to reach 911. If your cell towers are taken out due to fire, flooding, tornado, hurricane it will take several days for the cows (cell on wheels site) to be deployed. As a result I will always keep a minimal service local land line (plus free LD using Google Voice). Just be sure that you have an old fashioned push button or rotary phone since since batterypowered phones using a base station will not work.