Putting in disaster gouging laws is not really the virtuous thing, because
- Any cop you have out enforcing the anti-gouging law could instead be either pulling dudes out of flooded houses, trucking in water, handing out waters, or guarding supply points
- It isn’t going to actually increase the amount of drinkable water entering the zone
- Not every random trucking water in but charging for it is going to charge $42 a bottle. If someone charges some lesser amount, it may also still cover their fuel costs and time off work to get out there
This policy is more of a looking good than doing good thing. It lets the politicians get away without actually doing anything, spending any money, or successfully bringing more water into the zone. (It also costs resources to keep all these laws on the books.)
Having supply depots already nearby as part of a multi-layered civil defense system capable of responding to a broad range of emergencies is the actual virtuous policy, the tough one that we can’t actually have because reasons.
I know @collapsedsquid suggested that having supply depots would be defeated because tax breaks for the wealthy, but that isn’t the only factor.
Any money spent on civil defense depots with stockpiled water filters would also have to contend with complaints that it was depriving resources from any other groups - for instance, from education, healthcare, etc. It might even get accused of being racist for being connected to some distant probability-calculated need rather than the immediate needs of the local community. (Tho that last one can be reduced somewhat by giving the ¾ shelflife MREs over to homeless shelters.)