I've been playing around with echolink quite a bit, and while I can't say that it will be a good during a total grid down scenario it is a useful tool now. I've been using it to listen in on nets around the country that are along the same lines as what this group does and also had a couple of good QSO'S this way too.
It's kind of a bummer the SNARS repeaters are tied in at this point. It looks like maybe they were for a while there, does anyone know what happened?