In terms of evacuation, or even rebuilding efforts, you can’t really compare this to 9/11. As devastating as 9/11 was, the destruction in NYC was concentrated in a relatively small, concentrated area of lower Manhattan. Sandy’s destruction hit all five boroughs, including relatively isolated areas (as isolated as they can be in NYC) like the Rockaways. And that’s just NYC - if anything, jersey Jersey and Long Island were hit harder. It’s a much, much bigger area to evacuate, and a much, much bigger area to rebuild (and note that the area destroyed on 9/11 is still being rebuilt to this day.
The other major difference in terms of the recovery effort is that the area destroyed on 9/11 was largely a commercial/business area. Relatively few homes were destroyed. Here, obviously, many homes were destroyed. To the extent there are delays in the recovery effort (as there are always are), those delays are not nearly as visible when they affect a commercial district than when they affect residential areas.
Those are good points, and I am not claiming that the city should have been rebuilt in nine hours. What I am claiming is that in 2001 there was a can-do attitude, that felt free to operate outside the normal rules in order to get things done quickly. It was not chaos back then, it was a spontaneously emerging new order to fit the need of the time. Today New York has needs, but they are sticking to the rules, to their own citizen's detriment.
You are missing the big point. The evacuation on 9/11 was huge precisely because it was a business district. And it went off amazingly, because it was not centrally planned.
Even though this weak hurricane covered a huge area, the response is 100% government.
Private concerns are not free to come in and help. Disasters were handled much better before it was a government political opportunity. A few decades ago, there was a swarm of regular people, finding a thousand ways to help.
Now only certified, official, centrally planned Government responses are allowed.