After what has happened in recent years with Katrina (even if it's a 100 year storm in an area that gets them yearly), Houston (more familiar with hurricanes but not as clueless as New Jersey) and Sandy (hitting a totally unprepared area in the worst way we've had in my lifetime) I'm surprised there isn't so much more emphasis on prep for future natural disasters. I, obviously, worry that climate change denial and other science denial is preventing the masses from believing that these types of storms won't become more frequent or scarily the norm. I say that it can't hurt to better prepare if not over prepare and I scratch my head wondering why it barely seems like steps are being taken to do so.
I can only speak for my local area but New York City and New Jersey were not prepared at all. I was in a pretty good physical location when the storm hit, all things considered, but we were without power for 10 days. Luckily we had a gas station within walking distance and they gave priority to people who walked up with gas cans over cars in the mile long line idling around our neighborhood.
There were a bunch of news stories about people stealing generators. Necessities were sold out basically everywhere with little chance of restocking. Things got hairy, for sure.
The amount of people who scoffed at warnings were most likely the ones depending on a handy neighbor who was better prepared and better suited to calming down and making the best of the bad situation. I think it was a much needed, although terrible, wake up call for unprepared folks.
It was really nice to see so many people band together but the main takeaway I got from it was that I've never seen my area so close to complete breakdown and eventually mass chaos.
Why we aren't doing more to prevent that exact type of fallout from something we KNOW is coming? It feels like the definition of insanity to do otherwise. After witnessing it first hand and having no idea what it would be like to live in a hurricane or natural disaster-prone area, having to deal with it yearly, I NEVER want to deal with that again. Since I really have no say in what mother nature does, all I can do is say I NEVER want to be as unprepared for another disaster as I was before.
I also realize it's not so simple to pack your entire life up and move to a "more safe" location but there has to be some sort of graph where the cost of paying out insurance, cleaning up the mess, restoring supply chains, and all the other costs that come with a natural disaster equalizes with the cost of preparing as best as possible.