Having said all that, As Texans living on the coast, These very people said we shouldn't be allowed to rebuild in flood zones. We were told we deserved what we got for electing GW Bush. In hurricane Rita, I was without electricity for 30 days. It got plum mid-evil after a couple of weeks. The problem is these same people have never experienced something like this over their lifetime. It will get better, slowly, but there is nothing the government can do and very little others can do right now. This takes time. When a hurricane is projected to reach landfall, there should be Nat Guard trucks loaded with water, food, and blankets pre stationed 100 miles inland ready to move the day of the hurricane landfall. FEMA really can't do all that much for a few weeks. The Nat Guard, Salvation Army, and Red Cross are the first responders that know what they are doing. The rest of the responders are basically check writers. If you lost everything and you are 7 days in without underwear, the government isn't the one that will get you new drawers.
These Yankee's will have a new life lesson after 3 weeks and people still don't have juice and the camera's leave and all you have left is a slab with a pile of trash on the curb. The easy fixes are done first and the numbers change very quickly at first. That last 100,000 customers without power is the hardest. Your insurance company will be the one that pays you for your losses and replaces your car so you can get to the store and buy your underwear. It won't be coming from Obama, or any other government official.
And keep canned goods in your pantry.
Did some checking on the NY/NJ Climate and there's a clue about why this area has so many millions of people ~ first off, disasters don't happen often, certainly not annually. Secondly, they have a subway system, lots of rail, that sort of thing.
So, when the disaster ultimately arrives and they have to live like other Americans they find out they are simply not prepared, and they drop to their knees and wail.
They probably do imagine there's an invisible godlike being called 'government' that's there to help them ~ like it helps everybody else, but that's not how it works.
This is the part of the world that keeps Wal-Mart out so no underwear for them!
I was in the TX National Guard for almost 40 years. We had an Emergency Operation Center (OEC) that was in communication with the DPS and other state agencies. We loaded many a truck with pallets of water, MREs, generators and other supplies. The OEC would designate where they would be dispatched to about 48 hours before landfall.
I remember when Ike hit and the fuel tankers were dispatched to IH 10 coming out of Houston only to find out the fuel nozzles were too big to fit into the unleaded openings on the tank fillers.