Yep, totally her fault. Nothing to do with massive storms or anything.
Or with the CM not telling her the TIME cutoff, which is what messed things up, since she called on the *day*.
When Disney says they are going to send an email, they should. DVC people well know that they drop the ball on that quite often, and I don't think that should be happening, either. Or how about when I requested a mailed confirmation and got a confirmation with my name and address in the mailed-to section, but someone else's family and their travel plans in the rest of the letter? They should not be doing this.
I've already stated, Disney gives you until 10p EST to call in to make the payment. It's not like OP called at 8p after normal business hours for most places and it was already cancelled. Wouldn't have happened. She missed the deadline entirely, and gave no indication as to when she called after deadline. It's 10pm. Seriously. Do you expect to call some place at 11:30pm and be able to speak with someone? If you have 7 days to pay your water bill before shut off, do you think you can call them and pay it after they close? Come on. It's not rocket science.
She also said that she wasn't paying it and her relative was. The OP being busy and the hurricane really don't effect the relative paying, as far as we know. But again, she stated she was busy and then the hurricane. So after a day or 2 of no email, the OP should have called. If things are left to the last minute you run the risk of something unexpected popping up.
When someone is booking a reservation and it completes, and the CM gives them the reservation number/payment due dates and amounts, etc... people typically write it down. Why? Because email can never be a guaranteed source of communication. Neither can fax. How many times have you sent or been waiting to receive either one, it never gets there, YOU CALL, and they say 'weird it went through? I'll resend it.' Ever make a payment online and write down the confirmation number? Why do that if there is an email coming? Simple - Just in case.
Call Disney and ask them when the last email was sent. It's in the notes on the reservation for them to see - 'email autogenerated to blah blah blah address.' They can't really do more than send it.
Again, it's pretty gracious to hold a room for an entire week without payment.
The point is really moot since the OP got the room - and again - that's great! AoA will be a blast, and I'm glad it worked out for her. But Disney CMs take a lot of flack, and this just isn't something that's fair to put on one of them. Personal responsibility should be taken. How hard would it been to say, 'She told me 7 days. I didn't get the email and forgot to call and missed my deadline. Any chance something will pop up or anyone know who I could speak with?'