If you take that blief, why not just belive that his underlings, the ones monitoring news in your scenerio, would take appropriate measures (or nothing could be done) without even bothering to wake him up.
Ultimately, it's the bosses job to make sure things are getting done, that his people have the resources to get the job done... and I would expect when it's regarding a disaster of this magnitude, that he'd be overseeing things very closely until he was sure everything that could possibly be done was getting done. That's leadership. That's management.