I see from the link in 132 that the city water service was turned back on, on Wednesday:
O'Dwyer has cellphone service and ice cubes to cool off his highballs in the evening. By Wednesday, the city water service even sprang to life, making the daily trips to his neighbor's pool unnecessary. A pair of oil-company engineers, dispatched by his son-in-law, delivered four cases of water, a box of delicacies including herring with mustard sauce and 15 gallons of generator gasoline
I think that if we just left the people that want to stay the Hell alone they would surprise those that insist they won't survive without a nanny. They might even do something that some Big Brother types would really fear: rebuild the city themselves.