Why would you expect there to be riots? What the northeast is going through right now would best be described as "short term inconvenience". I realize that may not be the way it feels if you're in the middle of it (I am not personally). But realistically, we have hurricanes - storms - tornados - forest fires, etc. quite frequently and those affected are rapidly helped by the rest of the country. Storms are not the end of the world, except for the few folks unfortunate enough to die in one. In general, life goes on and returns to normal within a few months to a year or two.

Now, if this storm marked the end of power, clean water, gasoline, etc. PERMANENTLY in the northeast, I think things would be different and riots and armed mobs might well ensue shortly in the future. But the chances of a permanent outage, just like the civil unrest this would cause, are quite remote.