I have seen instances of what happens when there is panic and stores run out of food. When Hurricane Rita was thought to go through Houston and then through my town, people from Galveston through Houston, all left at once. People died on Hwy. 10 out of Houston toward San Antonio and Hwy. 45 out of Houston and through my town and all the way to Dallas. Millions of people cannot leave at once - cars ran out of gas from being in a stopped line of cars for hours and going no where. People in cars for hours had no water or food and when gas ran out, they for sure weren't going anywhere. Don't get on the road with millions of others trying to leave your area. Where you are is safer than exposed on the road.
People tend to think “this” is so bad, another place “must” be better so they get in a car and go, then find out there is no place better than they just left and they have less provisions than they had at home. Unless you have a safe place to go, don't leave.
It takes two days for stores in a county to run out of food due to a hurricane coming and no food stuffs are coming back until trucks can refuel their tanks in that county. There are no riots in a pre-hurricane situation, but there would be in a different situation such as the EBT cards not working or power not working so NO credit cards work. Stores would be overrun and neither they nor police could stop it - don't be there.
Police can't save anyone or stop a riot if there are many more rioters than there are police - don't be there.
Prepare now to be secure in your house, have everything you need for a period of time and the amount of time is up to you.
And if 25 armed gang bangers show up intent on simply burning your house down? That will take some serious preps and serious planning. I'm not certain I have all the details worked out for my homestead but I'm working it.
I had relatives traveling west on highway 59 to my home town during that Marcella. A normal drive from Galveston to here would be about 3 hours and it took them 16 hours!
The police had all highway exits blocked off and you were not allowed to pull off to any convenience store so you went without food or water all that time. As you wrote, people died, dogs died, cars overheated and air conditioners stopped working. You had to stop and go to the bathroom in the dividing grass median in public view.
One of the most illogical things was that people were not allowed to leave the main highway even if they had friends/relatives on one of the sideroads!! This continued until you were a couple hundred miles away I guess, we never really knew how far it extended.
But - people were still polite and law abiding then - I don’t believe they will be the next time.