i am ambiguous regarding private citizen rescues

[MineralMan]

39. Actually, it's almost impossible for government to prepare for

once in a century events. That would be completely ineffective, cost-wise. That private citizens come to take up the slack is just common sense and happens every time such rare disasters occur. It's something really dependable, too, so it can be part of the overall preparation equation, and is in most places.

In my neighborhood, a tree fell on a neighbor's house. Trees were falling all over the place. Within two hours, neighbors had dealt with it, tarped a hole in the neighbor's roof and gone back to their homes. I hauled my electric chainsaw over there and did a lot of limbing of larger branches that had been removed. Others had more powerful equipment, ropes and other stuff. When we all left, the tree was off the house and most of it was reduced to firewood and smaller branches stacked up for removal. If we hadn't done that, the tree would still have been there a week later, waiting for a tree company to come and remove it. They were all very, very busy.