The long-sought goal of developing a national emergency communications network for first responders is still years away from being realized and still isn't fully funded, even if $5 billion in proceeds from the incentive spectrum auction is applied to it, according to this article. One of the major challenges for the network is that it would depend on commercial cellphone networks, which were disabled by Hurricane Sandy due to a combination of cell towers collapsing, power going out and backup systems being flooded.