That's kind of a specious argument really. The same deprecating commentary people were saying about Syrian refugees last year, being so well-dressed. Of course, if you were leaving your bombed out city and could only carry the shirt on your back, you'd want it to be your best shirt. So when they leave their troubled land, of course refugees seem to be well dressed.

In PR it is the same. You do what you can. If you can't clean up much area, you clean up the area you can. If you don't have much reserve food or water, you gather and store your meagre stock in a clean, dry place and keep it in good shape while you wait for roads to clear so you can distribute what you have and get clean up and salvage crews to areas you can't reach yet.