And the mom/fam was able to call from overseas to local PD…
Yes, Ma Bell would prioritize getting the police phone lines working first
…and leave various messages with friends or neighbors to check on Kevin.
Family: they were all on the trip. Friends/neighbors: I don’t remember.
If local lines are non-functioning, all phone traffic is inoperative regardless if it’s long distance or not.
Back then it’d be easy to knock out long distance lines but keep the locals up; you just had to take down the right trunk. And in a city that big the trunks would have been split up into local and long distance.