Let me preface this by reminding people that I spent most of my life in NJ and I have seen my share of hurricanes and tropical storms.
Hurricane Sandy should be a eye-opener for people in the Northeast. They were woefully unprepared. Nobody seemed to expect the power outages or the shortage of supplies that should he been expected. Did anyone remember Katrina? There was better coordination and the disaster response was fast (they did learn something from Katrina).
People need to take their own steps to prepare. There are silly shows on television about people who take emergency preparedness to the extreme but one can learn from them. In those shows people are always stockpiling guns and ammo. During this emergency basic law and order never broke down. Those guns would have been useless. What did break down was the supply chain, particularly in fuel and water. Many people living in apartments in NYC were living without power and water for a week or more. This was a very well predicted storm. People could have built up a water store. People should have had edible food. People should be prepared to live in cold rooms (at this time of year hardly colder than a camper would find outside). In an apartment it would be hard to find a heat source that is safe. People should be able to stockpile 20 gallons or more of gasoline for their cars.
We also need to think about our infrastructure. Does NYC needs a sea wall? A lot of petroleum is stored in tank in NJ. Some of those were damaged during the storm. This is the kind of thing that is preventable. There was a documentary called ‘It Can Happen Tommorow’ that show what might happen if a category 3 hurricane hit NYC. Of course this was an exaggeration, but it should have given city planners ideas on what needs to be upgraded. Well that upgrade was never made, but perhaps now is the time.
