Years ago, when I lived in Washington DC, there was an incident on the metro when a train got stuck in a tunnel that was filling with smoke.
Metro authorities told everyone to stay in the train cars, even though they were filling with smoke and it’s generally a bad idea to stay in an enclosed space filling with smoke. Metro also has evacuation instructions posted by every door.
An elderly woman eventually did die from smoke inhalation. More people had to be treated for smoke inhalation.
And I recall getting into an argument in, like, the comments section of an article on Popville about how *you should not stay in an enclosed space filling with smoke because you will eventually die.*
And a number of other people chastised me for saying this, because People In Authority had told everyone to stay put and it could have been very dangerous to open the doors and evacuate. Someone might have died!
But someone literally did die from following those instructions.
HeavenlyPossum
in reply to HeavenlyPossum • • •I routinely think about this essay, about the sinking of the ferry Estonia in the 1990s, which made a huge impression on me and which I’ve plugged before:
“People who started early and moved fast had some chance of winning. People who started late or hesitated for any reason had no chance at all. Action paid. Contemplation did not. The mere act of getting dressed was enough to condemn people to death, and although many of those who escaped to the water succumbed to the cold, most of the ultimate winners endured the ordeal completely naked or in their underwear. The survivors all seem to have grasped the nature of this race…”
In this particular case, the disaster unfolded so quickly and dramatically that there was no real chance for people in authority to tell people to stay put. But they were also of little to no help to anyone else.
When you sense that you are in danger, listen to that sense and act to protect yourself and anyone else around you who is willing to listen. Do not wait for orders. Do not worry about appearing embarrassed about overreacting. Trust yourself and take action.
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
William Langewiesche: The Sinking of the Estonia
William Langewiesche (The Atlantic)HeavenlyPossum
in reply to HeavenlyPossum • • •All of this came to mind when I read about the disastrous flooding at Camp Mystic in Texas on 4 July. The camp had been built in a flood plain. Its owners knew this and had deliberately sought and received zoning exemptions to build buildings that were unsafe. They had received flash flood warnings that night and waited more than an hour before taking any action to evacuate their children at the camp.
“As the water encroached, the teenage counselors, cut off from others, were left to make frantic life-and-death decisions.”
27 campers and counselors died that night, and six more are still missing. You cannot rely on systems and structures of authority to help you in an emergency. You must trust your judgment. Act and act fast.
archive.is/OApmk
HeavenlyPossum
in reply to HeavenlyPossum • • •Hierarchical authority relies on stable and predictable systems to work. They require an environment that is legible to the people in positions of authority. They require clear communication of orders down the hierarchical chain.
None of that exists in a genuine emergency, especially one that affects people in authority and their subordinates equally. And, critically, for those systems of authority to work in ways that might be useful to you, they require people in power to have better judgment than you about your own immediate circumstances, and they require people in power to care as much about you as they do about themselves.
In short, act as if no one is coming to save you or the people next to you.
Kinene
in reply to HeavenlyPossum • • •However:
For Californians-
If Cal-Fire tells you to evacuate, go! They do know what they are doing, and they really hate finding burnt corpses. Your property is not worth your life.
PedestrianError
in reply to Kinene • • •Kinene
in reply to PedestrianError • • •@PedestrianError
Cal-Fire issues precautionary evacuation orders far ahead of time. In rural areas, they want people out of the way and off of the roads, so they can get their equipment to the fire.
I have been in two evacuations, so far. Been there.
@HeavenlyPossum
Violet Madder
in reply to Kinene • • •@c_merriweather @PedestrianError
I know people who lost everything in deadly freeway-jumping, neighborhood-annihilating wildfires that moved so fast there was no time for evacuation orders to go out.
Especially now that the various emergency monitoring and response services are getting cut willy nilly, don't count on getting warnings.
PedestrianError
in reply to HeavenlyPossum • • •CyberFrog
in reply to HeavenlyPossum • • •this reminds me of a concert I attended recently, where the fire alarm system went off during the start of the show... nobody was sure what was happening, the show was occurring on the 4th floor of a large building, I'd estimate only about 10% of the audience got up and reacted to the alarm (which sounded for about 15 minutes straight before authorities made a statement of false alarm)
I can't help thinking about what would have happened if it wasn't a false alarm... if there was really a fire only the people who left early would have had a chance of making it out alive, the rest likely would have just been burned up in a tall building fire because they sat around ignoring the fire alarms waiting for a statement tbh
to make this worse, most of the audience happened to be elderly people who would struggle to escape in a rush too
LukefromDC
in reply to HeavenlyPossum • • •Note that in the Metro situation, if it is the tunnel not the train filling with smoke things get more complex. It is the tunnel from which you must either escape or move far enough within to get upwind or out of range of the smoke.
The train car itself may or may not hold off the smoke, but if you wait in it until it gets too smoky it will then be even worse in the tunnel.
The final complication is this: if the train still has 3ed rail power Metro will presumably try to back it out of the smoke. Metro really needs to tell passengers right quick in these scenarios whether that will be attempted or not. If it works, its the best way out of the smoke for everyone. If it cannot be done passengers need to know fast.
Paul SomeoneElse
in reply to HeavenlyPossum • • •I think about this lately from a bit of a longer perspective.
I'm always depressed because I think the world is ending, but I still work
and pay off my mortgage and prepare to retire.
I have been thinking that I might be more at peace if
I stopped worrying about fiscal stuff if I really believe that we have maybe a decade
before most societies collapse.
(Like in your Estonia example me worrying about my 401k is like someone
worrying about putting clothes on before jumping in the water.)