Streaming live TV over 3G

I suffered complete power outage from Superstorm Sandy, as did so many others. Cable was knocked out, too. I did have my land line for phone and I did have cell/3G service. I did get emergency updates from county Emerg Management, but it was sorely lacking. What i needed and wanted was access to my local TV news, etc. My cable, TWC, has live streaming, but via their cable. Local news indicated they were streaming,but apparently via WiFi. So there I was with my iPhone, not being able to keep up to date. I am looking for ways to be able to use my iPhone and to be purchased iPad as a true emergency tool when the need arises. Anyone with successful stories on how to be able to stream live TV news with these devices when power & WiFi is out.

I wouldn't say you could rely on any rechargeable/3g solution in a disaster scenario but I can give a couple of ideas to circumvent the wifi hurdle.

You can get yourself a mifi/personal hotspot device - they connect to 3g and then create a wifi network so any device that connects sees the connection as wifi and treats it as such. You can do similar if you tether your iPad to your iPhone. The iPad will then treat the connection as if it were wifi.

In the UK we have a number of apps that allow live TV to be viewed over 3g. Perhaps a US based member can advise on similar apps for the US.