If people believe a problem can be solved and know what to do, they want to help. But if they do not believe a problem can be solved, or don't even see it as a problem because it is too big (like the problem of humans suffering), then you are on your own. So both your observations are correct.
Once this emergency fades away and the pressures of life come back, those people will go away. Your regular problems will come back. Everyone will still be stuck in the same basic position, but with additional loss and pain from the disaster.
This tiresome drama repeats somewhere in our society all the time. We really need help escaping this cycle. But who is able to see that? Who knows how to solve it?
it's not in the power of ordinary people I guess...
Not so. It is potentially within everyone's power. This power must first be recovered. It is a simple matter of using what nature gives us for recovering it.