If you aren't comfy cutting blowdown, there may be opportunities to take your box cutter knives and cut out sodden carpet from homes. Shovel mud out, yard out ruined furniture and appliances. That's what we did. The county put out a radio announcement asking for folks to show up to do the dirty work. And don't call the victims "lazy". First, they've gone through hell. They've lost almost everything and if insured are facing a lot of time and paperwork. They are in shock. Let them rest if they need it and you help them out.
And this is why its baiting. Nobody said anything about anybody being lazy or otherwise privileged just like nobody ever said an electric saw was the perfect chainsaw for natural disasters. What people HAVE said (including myself, and I stand by the recommendation) is that IF you want a chainsaw to use for an occasional downed limb or an occasional camp fire, a battery powered saw can be a great choice because you don't have to worry about straight gassing it, and you don't have to worry about carb or other starting issues. If it sits on the shelf for 2 years between uses, when you squeeze the trigger, the chain still goes around so long as the batteries are still good.
A good friend of mine asked me for my recommendation on a chainsaw last year after we had a storm go through. His church had gone to help a fellow member of their congregation who had substantial damage. I don't recall if it was a total loss or not. He helped carry stuff, but he wished he had a saw he could use to help. He knew that I did this kind of volunteer work and asked my opinion. Keep in mind that he's in his late 50s, essentially works in an office, and IF he's ever run a chainsaw it's been at least 20 years. My advice to him was to find his favorite brand of battery powered lawn equipment (trimmers, blowers, ect), and buy a battery powered saw that uses the same batteries. His immediate response was something like "What the heck am I going to cut with a battery powered saw?" My response to him was basically that those saws will do a lot more work than he had any business trying to do. Realistically, a good battery powered saw is on par with most good 50cc saws, and better than anything smaller. They are fine for cutting 10" hardwoods, but they will admittedly have a limited run time. That's enough to cover a LOT of the cleanup work. If you happen to be moving debris by hand instead of with skid steers and mini's, then a battery saw becomes even more useful because you're cutting a lot of branches that are only 3"- 4" across so they will stack nicely in a truck bed, on a trailer, or even lay nicely into a pile. By the time the batteries die, he's likely going to be physically done for the day anyways.
To the OPs point, if you're doing something where a battery powered saw just won't cut it, then you also need to know what you're doing. I've hung up my share of trees while felling dead trees for firewood, but its rare that I work on a tree on a site that's not in worse shape than anything I've ever done on my own. Admittedly, I'm still learning but more than once I've stepped back to let braver (or more experienced, or maybe just dumber) men than me work on a specific tree.
