Genocide is the word

Send out the hospital ship and an aircraft carrier group (with almost nothing but helicopters on it) to follow along BEHIND the hurricane.

Hurricanes almost never reverse course. The ships would be on station within hours of the hurricane leaving the scene of any potential devastation.

If the Hurricane misses everything... some expense incurred but no real harm done (training exercise).

If the Hurricane hits something, the hospital ship and helicopters, complete with bottled water supplies, etc, would be ready to save lives.

that sat idle in Maine while victims were begging for water/ice during Katrina. Shameful.

that he didn't think they needed ice for the parties they were having in NO after Katrina. That's why he sent the ice to Maine. I'll never forget that.

to park that thing there.

they did pay and arm and a leg to carnival for ships for personnel that they never sent.

This may answer some questions. The chain of command was respected. https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/16/health/puerto-rico-hospital-ship/index.html

This happened in Katrina, as well. If you listen through the headlines to what's going on, often you find that the response is layered. There's local responses; there are state-level responses; there are federal responses. In Louisiana, the government defended her turf after the local response failed. DU was rife with discussion that had two sides to it: It would be horrible for Bush II to federalize the disaster; Bush II had jurisdiction over everything, why didn't FEMA do anything.

Even with the National Guard, the official request to pull in other NG personnel has to start with the governor and is sent directly to the other states. If that's not done, they respect the chain of command and don't send troops. They may offer, they may call them up and prep them, but none cross state lines.

FEMA waited for PR's referrals. PR didn't send them. Why? That's a different question.

Same for all the linemen that were available to help resuscitate the power grid. PR could have called them weeks before they did. But PR decided to contract it out, with incredibly bad public-relations results.

the entire 4th Fleet would have been mobilized immediately, and completely encircled the island.

Of course, they'd have just bombed the place flat. But they sure would have been there, in a snap.