Disaster management is preparing for the worst scenarios, that includes having more equipment then just enough for the people already signed up to do the work. I didn’t say or imply that they should just hoard stuff and forget about it.
California has wildfires regularly. They should have a whole lot of people on the payroll as regular firefighters, train potential volunteers to assist in fires, and have trucks, planes etc ready for this exact situation. This state and its cities are extremely wealthy. I can criticise countries like Greece and Turkey when they make errors, call out blatant mistakes, but at the end of the day I won’t call them imbeciles as I do people in charge in California and LA. One has all the resources in the world, the other doesn’t.
I heard it a few times, mostly about Caesar’s funeral. Every time the person talking/writing about it has the tone of “look at these crazy people giving in to hysteria.” I couldn’t say it’s definitely true, not my area.
You’re completely right on how they’re portrayed generally. Storytellers will regularly mention generals making a fortune out of loot and slaves, neither the teller not listener will ask what that entails or how moral it is. Folks read Cicero proudly talking about being a slumlord and not bat an eye, at this point I wonder if they just compartmentalise it all, turn off major parts of their brain when the subject of certain ancient peoples comes up.