Yes it's normal after a tropical cyclone.

The press seems to have lost sight of the fact that there's quite a bit of experience with such events on the Gulf Coast. It just takes time to inspect *every* *single* transformer in an area many tens of thousands of square miles, especially if 25% need replacing.

All of the normal "what to expect if you decide to ride out a hurricane" rules apply, even though these people didn't plan on riding it out and probably didn't realize that's what they were doing, like it or not.