You really are screwed aren't you? The first thing you think of is the horror of repealing seatbelt laws, now you're saying that humans can't go on after a natural disaster without FEMA?
You're truly an example of how beaten down and perverted the American spirit has become. Sorry to tell you that.
Wrap yourself in a fluffy blanket, take some happy pills and curl up for an exciting episode of friends. That's about all you're useful for at this point, pure dead weight.
And your question doesn't address the still-larger question of how those in other, less independant and self-reliant locales would recover after an equally serious disaster in their backyards will recover without the federal disaster relief they need every bit as much a junkie needs his next fix, particularly if those funds have dwindled to nothing from having been fraudulently applied elsewhere, or are denied for self-serving political reasons.
Indeed, I think you'll find that most of those in Iowa and other places can respond pretty quickly and effectively to such things once they're not burdened by having to drag around the beltway bureaucrats whose hands are in their wallet pockets, hanging on for dear life like leeches. I expect I have enough of a background in disaster response and emergency management to be of assistance to those of my neighbors who might need assistance, and they don't have to givve me half of all they make and own to get my help, just ask for it. If someone better qualified steps up to run such a show, so much the better; I'll happily do whatever I can as a deputy or staffer instead, or cheerfully go home and go back to bed if I'm in the way.
But what are those poor disaster-stricken folks in those other places going to do when they're similarly affected, and the FedGov help isn't there for them following a Soviet Union-style last gasp cabinet crisis and political breakup. Don't think it can't happen here; the Soviet Communists were willing to resort to much more extreme methods to try to halt that process there; and that dog won't hunt hereabouts.
-archy-/-
If you knew the Feds were not going to bail you out after a particular disaster you might be inclined to build hardier or elevated structures or not live in the affected area based upon your own cost\risk analysis...