A couple weeks after one of the Florida hurricanes in 2004, I spent some time with a group from our church that did a lot of volunteer cleanup work in the affected areas.

People were constantly surprised that we'd help them cut up fallen trees without charging them. Someone with a decent commercial chainsaw, the appropriate training and safety gear, and the ability to maintain their own saw(s) could have made a reasonable amount of money for weeks. The middle-class neighborhoods are full of people that just need help cutting up fallen trees and getting them to the curb. I personally wouldn't work in lower-class neighborhoods for money, since there are volunteer groups that will eventually do it for free. Still-standing trees and trees actually on houses are better left alone for insurance reasons.

If you can repair, sharpen, or maintain a chainsaw, you can make good money. We were lucky to have two different shops donating their repair work in our staging area, but we would have gladly paid $20 a saw to get some back in action.

In really affected areas where buildings have come apart, plugging nail holes in tires could easily be a full-time job for the first couple of days.

In our area, after the biggest storm hit us, for weeks I think every redneck with a pickup and open trailer was hauling as much tree debris as they could pile onto it. I didn't really look into it, but I believe the county set up a really easy subcontracting system. They either just paid by the truckload/pound or maybe set up a prequalifying system. Not sure which. But every lawn trailer quickly got sides built out of 2x4s and plywood and was hauling huge piles to chipper stations.