I don't remember how I found out what was going on, and the university I was near still had their power station up, so I may have had better local comms (it was small and not real tied to the grid, mostly used for heating).
I certainly didn't spend time huddled around an AM radio.
No power, so no internet, cell service was overloaded and didn't work because of that, and well.. all that was was left was the radio.