That's true; self-reliance invariably promotes charity, because we all like to see people try to take care of themselves, and we like to help people that help themselves.
I was here in South Dade at our home for Andrew and it did take the better part of a week before significant outside help was in place.
After a while, the 82nd Airborne showed up, set up camp 2 blocks away. For close to a month, you couldn't get into the neighborhood after dark without ID, there were military checkpoints at every intersection. Curfew 10 PM.
I remember, August 25, after the storm passed west and once it was safe to go out of the house, driving around the neighborhood, mostly on peoples's lawns, since the streets were all blocked by debris. I almost got lost in my own neighborhood, it looked so different. The traffic lights weren't just not working, they were blown away, no one knew where they were, even. Almost every house had structural damage, but most were still standing. Not all, several were completely demolished. There were fish, peacock bass, finning in puddles alongside the road.
But the point is, for days we were on our own, no phones to call cops or ambulances, they couldn't come even if you'd gotten hold of them, the streets were all blocked with trees and debris. No communications at all, no way to buy food, gas, any kinds of supplies, no nothing. We didn't even know how far away the area was devastated, but we assumed it was far.
I'd grown up hearing that hurricane preparation meant having food and other kinds of supplies on hand for 5 days or more, so luckily we had plenty of food and a Coleman stove with a gallon of gas to power it. And we were armed.
My feelings about NOLA. The city and the state knew this flooding would happen in the case of a strong hurricane strike, but neither prepared for it anyway, sometimes I guess it's hard to allocate funds for future catasphrophes that not everyone worries about. But the leadership there is culpable.
On the national level, I believe it's within constitutional bounds to send in troops to restore order in the cause of national security, which seems reasonable to me when major areas of the country are affected, as they are now, and were after Andrew.