I hate to sound crass, but leadership is for a freakin' war zone. Let's be brutally honest here -- a "lack of leadership" would never be an issue if this situation had occurred in a place where where quasi-humanoid mutants and incurable poverty cases make up less than 50% of the population.
This disaster is an eye-opener, folks. Not because of the "lack of leadership," but because most of us had no idea how few of our fellow citizens have even a rudimentary grasp of some very basic life skills.
Agreed in some respect, however, it seems that even schools do fire drills, etc etc. It seems that there is no cooridnated effort to make things happen more efficiantly or quicker.
I live in NYC and will tell you the Guiliani's leadership really did a lot to help the situation stay as calm as possible without destructing into chaos like we have here.