I was in Miami for Hurricane Andrew. Civilization did not collapse. There was some theft of things like chainsaws and generators, but nothing that honestly woul

I was in Miami for Hurricane Andrew. Civilization did not collapse. There was some theft of things like chainsaws and generators, but nothing that honestly wouldn't be par for the course in Miami. Meanwhile, folks cooperating to help each other out was amazing. Two small anecdotes: - traffic lights were out for at least a week. There were not enough police to man them all. But at a major intersection with two multi lane roads, taking turns just doesn't work. Someone has to direct traffic. So what would happen is a passenger would get out of a car and direct traffic for a few minutes till his car got through. After a bit, he'd then get back to his car and then he and the driver would head off. There would be a couple minutes chaos, then another passenger would hop out from somewhere and do the same. It was amazing and some sort of emergent behavior. - A gas station for whatever reason was unattended for several hours with the pumps left on and a sign to just place cash into a drop box. So basically an honor market. The owner of that station later claimed folks ended up paying more than they had pumped. Don't recall if this was immediately before or shortly after the storm. Overall, the recovery brought out the best in most people. Of course there were opportunists who took advantage after the storm, but that mostly wasn't locals.