Sandy - Repentence anyone

I recently was studying the book of Jonah in my quest to go through all of the tanach (Torah, Prophets and Writings) by the time I am 40. One of the things that struck me was the fact that a prophet comes to the Assyrian capital, Ninveh, announces that in 40 days the city will be destroyed and suddenly a movement of repentance strikes the land and everyone starts doing acts of kindness and becoming better people.

I suggested to the class I am studying with that there must have been a natural disaster looming in order to convince the people that he was serious. Why else would people suddenly think, "Oh man, that guy knows what he is talking about."  The general response of the other people is that there is nothing in the story to indicate that,

Looking at Sandy the Hurricane, and the utter terror she is invoking makes me sure that is what happened. I heard Obama on the news instructing people to prepare to evacuate and to follow instructions. I am expecting a news report, "This just in, a prophet of God has just indicated that New York will be completely destroyed if the people do not repent. Please put on your repenting shoes, get down on your knees and pray."

Unfortunately, the mainstream media is not reporting this and there is no general call for repentance. One of the problems with a generic call for repentance is that nobody would actually know what that meant. Everyone thinks that they are behaving properly. I assume that back in Ninveh, the citizens did not think of themselves as bad people, and would have been dumbfounded to hear otherwise. They would probably call the person an extremist.

What would that repentance entail? One may start praying regularly, but is he praying to the God of Heaven and Earth or to a human figure who they believe is his son or even to a statue or a cow? The repentance that was done must have been a humanistic repentance, involving treating people correctly, for that is the only thing your average person can think that he may have done incorrectly.