Ace wrote:

The question: Is the call made from New York to California on a land based
phone to a cellular phone a local call to the neighbor reporting the roof
being blown off?

I believe so.

At least, the opposite is true - a call to a cell phone based in a
distant area code is not local even if the phone is physically located
in the caller's local calling area. I occasionally run into this given
that I haven't changed numbers after moving, but rarely as I talk
almost exclusively to other cell phones and we all seem to have
domestic long distance free within our alloted plan minutes. It only
ever comes up if someone is using a land line because they are out of
cell minutes - I then sometimes get asked to call them back.