[aklug] DNS Root Failure?

Okay, humour me a bit, but I'm curious:

From what I understand, DNS works like so:
1. DNS Client communicates requests to recursive DNS server
2. Recursive DNS server contacts root DNS server to get authoritative
list for top-level tld (com, edu, org, etc)
3. Recursive DNS server gets list from authoritative server for that
domain, to get list for subdomain.
...
And so on and so on until an IP address for the host can be returned to
the client. Though most of these steps can be skipped if the request is
cached and the TTL has not expired.

Now, lets say the root server in Anchorage, which as far as I know is
the only one in Alaska, suddenly goes kaput. Are all the other DNS
servers in Alaska programmed to automatically send their requests to
another root server out-of-state? Or is the delay while server operator
figure out what the heck is going on and change this manually? Can the
clients all continue to operate normally until the TTL expires?

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