We were out for over 9 hours here in Fairfax (VA suburb of Washington, DC). I live on the border of Fairfax and Alexandria (also near Arlington).
Service stopped around noon (maybe a little before, or after; I didn't notice right away and then thought it was just me. It came back at 9:34 PM.
During the outage I was able to text message at least some Verizon customers. But when it came back, I got a flood of texts from other people who I think are on other carriers. During the outage my FIOS internet worked fine (no land line though).
For some reason, my iPhone was unable to make calls over Wifi. I had that enabled, but dialing a number did the same thing as a carrier call: an instant "Call Failed". No matter what I was trying to call.
People on the Internet around here said that there was also no way to call 911 from any phone on Verizon Wireless.
This was a massive disaster affecting public safety, as well as the government and military. Verizon is the biggest carrier here in the D..C. area.