I lived in Houston during hurricane ike back in like 2008 or whatever, and it wasn’t a super strong storm or anything, but power was out for over a week where I was in Pasadena. My downstairs neighbor and I built a bonfire on our apartment sidewalk to cook up all the freezer/fridge stuff that was thawing it going bad, and invited everyone around to partake. The cops showed up because of the fire, saw it was contained, told us to be careful, took an offered beer, and shot the shit for 20 min.

I remember going with the neighbors to get bottled water, I’m still not really sure how they heard about it, and it was an all day event to stand around in a shade-free line waiting for the tiny aid package. Fruit, bread, and a case of water. Not like we had anything else to do, but still.

Frankly I don’t blame people for getting power where they can. Utilities there really are absolute nonsense. And with smart phones being a literal lifesaver now, in addition to just providing -something- to do while power is out, I am not actually terribly surprised.