A Green Road Blog 

A 5.8 earthquake shook central Virginia this afternoon. It was felt in both Washington D.C. to New York.

FEMA says that anyone who has a cell phone should refrain from using it after a major disaster. Cell phones were unusable in many areas, as everyone tried to call at once. 

FEMA advises everyone to use the cellphone only to text messages during a disaster. Texting uses up a lot less 'memory' or bandwidth, thus allowing more people to communicate at the same time. 

Email is another way that people can communicate with more chance of success, during a disaster. 

My comment: If the Internet and electricity is still working, then the above advice seems sound. But if the power goes off, then none of the above will work. 

If the power goes out during a disaster, standard landline phones (not the ones that plug into the wall power) and phone lines will be the only thing left with any possibility of communication other than yelling or sending a letter by mail. 

There may also be a few short wave radio sets, powered by batteries or solar, of course. 

It helps to have a battery powered radio for the above reasons, so you can find out what is happening outside of the standard ways we get information these days, all of which require the electrical grid to be working and in good shape. 

Local radio stations might also still work on backup power.