Hello, Just to chime in with some historical bullocks....
Don't forget 500 year floods that happen twice in a couple of years, e.g. the midwest. Or the occasional bombing, e.g. our New York City POP is in Hackensack, NJ now, the MIDNET router in Oklahoma City is in a landfill now. An Internet connection is pretty far down on the list of important things in a real disaster.
Actually, no.... The MIDnet OKC pop did not go down w/ the Murrah building bombing. 1 or 2 customers went down that were physically proximitous to the blast, however. The LEC/RBOC FR network stayed up too... Still, the point is well taken that un-meshed networks can not stand significant damage from unforeseen natural/unnatural diasters. Meshing the network doesn't guarantee much, but gives you a chance of diminishing the harm. -alan