There are basic communications principles that pre-date having an Internet. One of them is that emergency traffic let alone health & welfare traffic have prece

There are basic communications principles that pre-date having an Internet. One of them is that emergency traffic let alone health & welfare traffic have precedence over routine traffic on communications systems. There can be voluntary prioritization of traffic to support emergency response now or the full legal power of multiple nation-states can be brought to bear to ensure traffic supporting emergency response gets handled first. What we have here is a critical vulnerability in that too much is dependent upon one backbone.