How important is a writer?

If the world ends, is there anyway that a writer can be useful to someone? Would anyone choose a writer to a carpenter or an engineer? I’ve seen the other day 2012 and the main hero of the movie is a writer. But that’s just a movie, no? If I’m thinking right, almost never in human history artist were much appreciated, only after their death. To be an artist wasn’t seen as a revenue source but somehow some of us have always been gifted with an artistic skill: a beautiful voice, drawing or painting, writing or just telling stories. And somehow even the ones with less talent where drawn to those artistic forms by something inside their being, something that’s in their genetic line, an inclination to beauty and reverie.
Dreams and imagination and hope built this world as we know it. We’re in debt to writers for some of the most inventions today: like space shuttles and submersibles (see Jules Verne). A writer usually dares to dream at the future, observes and analyzes human nature in different situations. But the things that remain after a writer are its writings not the writer himself. So only the product of his mind is the one that interest the others not his person. If the world ends, everyone will want to be rescued, but only few will be the privileged (if there is a chance for some survivors). My question is there will be a place for a writer among them, or he or she just has to be 100% healthy, well built, no more than 30 years old and skilled at something more practically than writing? I just don’t know the answer at that question. And I don’t want to think that the end is closer than I thought. Because the end can be any moment from now no matter what and I don’t have to live my life depending on how or when the end will be.
I will continue to write until that will not be possible any more no matter what (and please don't get me wrong: I'm not a writer, I'm just a person who writes). I just believe in the power of hope and dreams.