What Happened in Memphis on Tuesday?

I've been traveling, so it's possible that there's been a lot of coverage of this and I've just missed it, but how widely covered was the air traffic control mishap in Memphis on Tuesday afternoon? The AP reports that communications equipment went down at the Memphis regional air-traffic control center, but that means far more than just the airport was disabled for a little while. Flights originated elsewhere and going to other places was affected, as well. Anything going through the airspace of the Memphis center at all, on its way, say, from one coast to the other, was disrupted. Flights in the air were transferred to other air-traffic control centers (I don't know, but I'm assuming that means they had to change course and fly around the Memphis airspace entirely, because with no one communicating, it couldn't be assumed to be safe). Flights that would be flying through that airspace were held on the ground until communications were reestablished. There are twenty air-traffic control centers in the United States, so we have to assume that something like 5 percent of the nation's airspace was effectively shut down for a couple of hours. It was later reported that the communications failure was an AT&T problem, which does little to offer any reassurance.

This is another example that the infrastructure of this country is operating on spit and chewing gum. Whether it's bridges collapsing, roads being subpar, or air travel becoming paralyzed, we've got a lot of structure and equipment that is well into its obsolence phase. We've got major and costly repairs and upkeep ahead of us if we want to keep our country in working order. Why do I have the feeling that all of that is going to be put on hold until we finish running our military into the ground in Iraq? Welcome to the future.