Cell phone service will be around during and to some extent after the storm. The problem lies not with the towers, although some will fail b/c they are probably not designed for 145mph winds plus gusts especially the old ones, but the antennas they really take a beating in the winds. They move or fall off which will disrupt the network becuase they are not transmitting their signal in the right direction. However, if a tower/antenna site survives (which most do) they will have about 4-12 hours of emergency backup power (generators, batteries) then they fail. That is why most can use a cell phone during and usually one day after the event and then service dies until the main power is restored or the wireless company adds more gas to the generator. They only caveat is capacity...if there are 1 millions calls into a network designed for 500K calls...there will be problems. Good luck to your family...I really feel for all those folks up there!