From the article:
When we went to our seats, the wait staff let us know that despite the fact that the previews were playing, we wouldn’t know until the movie actually started whether we could see the film or not. If it didn’t work, the screen would just turn black. Luckily, the film went through without a hitch.
Yes. I’ve lived it. I used to live in hurricane territory and the last couple of major storms I experienced resulted in complete loss of cable internet, T-Mobile and Verizon cell service. I had ample battery backups (and a well-supplied generator) to keep everything on my end up and running, but it didn’t matter. Once we lost utility power, the cable went dark immediately. The cell towers lasted a day or two with very spotty and limited reception and then those went dark too.
Landlines used to still work as long as the lines weren’t physically damaged because of the big battery banks at the central station, but the copper lines are being left to rot and replaced with VOIP that goes out when the power does.
Our communications infrastructure is less robust in an emergency than it was 20 years ago.