Here are some positives and negatives.

First, the positive story.
I just spoke to a woman who lived in Northridge at the time of the Northridge earthquake in California. She said that after the quake the people in her neighborhood all decided to get together and have a block party. So they put on a big communal barbecue on the block. Everybody pulled out their barbecue stoves and started cooking up meat & hamburgers.

Pretty smart response! Once the electrical power goes off, the stuff in refrigerators will go bad in a couple of days. So you may as well eat the dairy products and meat while they are still good. Also, this type of event gets people into a positive mindset and working together. So I thought that was a very good approach.