Don't stand up

Can't get enough of books about how people behave in a crisis.  Why? you might wonder, since I've practically never faced a crisis.  Anyway, it's an obsession.  I'm enjoying Amanda Ripley's book "The Unthinkable."  Here's brief advice from a Kansas City fireman:
Richard Gist, a psychologist with the fire department, has had to notify hundreds of Kansas City residents that a family member has died in a fire.  Over and over again, they ask him why their loved one didn't simply walk out of the door or climb out the window.  They have no concept of what it would be like to be in a fire.  "I very frequently find myself standing with the survivors in a burned home explaining how their loved one died.  They say 'Why didn't they just...?'  You have to explain to them that it was 2:00 A.M., and they woke up out of a dead sleep."  If you wake up in heavy, hot smoke and stand up, you're already dead from scorched lungs.  You have to roll out of bed and crawl to an exit, not an easy thing to remember.  That's why Gist spends much of his time trying to get people to put batteries in their smoke detectors and practice evacuating before a fire, so that escaping becomes automatic.  Echoing every disaster expert I've ever met, Gist says, "If you have to stop and think it through, then you will not have time to survive."
Ripley looked into survival rates for the flooded areas of New Orleans during Katrina.  Neither race nor income was a good predictor, nor does she attribute the disaster primarily to the incompetence of local officials. At least half of survivors readily admitted they could have left if they'd really wanted to, so why didn't they?  Age was a strong predictive factor.  Ripley has two theories.  One is that people of a certain age had weathered Hurricanes Betsy in 1965 and Camille in 1969, leading to a fatal misapprehension of the risk from Katrina.  Those hurricanes, she suggests, killed more people in 2005 than when they hit in 1965 or 1969, just from their impact on attitudes.  (The flip side is that twice as many people as expected evacuated during Rita a few week later, an over-reaction that led to its own problems.)  Another theory is that many of us, as we age, because gradually less capable of acting decisively to turn our routines on their heads.  Heaven knows I don't think we could dislodge my mother-in-law from her house with dynamite, even if a Category 5 storm were bearing directly down on her.  We'd have to slip her a Micky and carry her out.

Age aside, though, and strangely, in many fires people don't leap for the exits the way you'd guess they might.  You'd like them to go all Jason Bourne, springing into action a nanosecond after perceiving the threat, but instead they stop, consider, mill around, and sometimes inexplicably become rooted to the spot, even before you take into account the intense panic and disorientation that come with heavy smoke.  Ripley's Kansas City contact told her about training sessions in which young firefighters were made to crawl blindly through smoke until they were tangled in wires, from which they had to cut themselves loose.  The very thought makes me want to get up this instant and walk outside, but who knows whether I'd go rigid in the grip of the wires, or take maniacally effective action to break free?  I still vividly remember the feral crouch my brain went into when I underwent smoke-filled tunnel training.  I kept moving purposefully, but only by an extreme effort of will that didn't leave much room for high-level cognition.  I'll never understand how people can spelunk.


"That Bourne--he's hard to catch."

11 comments:

E Hines said...

There's another aspect, too, that also flows from prior experience. When I was a boy in upstate Illinois, Kankakee was beset (as it often is) with tornadoes. This one time only, Dad decided to evacuate us from the town. We were nearly killed in a traffic accident by panicky drivers going the wrong way (!) on the road.

It was shortly after that that I started chasing tornadoes on my bicycle, and seeing how harmless (to life, anyway) they could be if dealt with alertly.

Then there's my (minimal) tear gas training in the USAF--embrace the suck, then don the mask. See how much time you really have before the (nonlethal) gas becomes unbearable. (Actually, the lesson was intended to be a confidence builder in the effectiveness of our masks, but some of us drew the other lesson, also.)

The upshot of it all is that I will refuse to evacuate, no matter the emergency. I might depart my house--if there's a fire of a threatening size--but only after I've gotten my wife out, my pets, and certain highly portable valuables. I will not abandon my cats. Full stop.

Eric Hines

Grim said...

I think you should still evacuate a house fire, Mr. Hines.

As I've mentioned, my father was a long time Captain of the Volunteer Fire Department. We got the full drills. He even bought me -- this was the coolest thing in the world to a boy of 12 or so -- a steel chain-and-bar ladder I could roll out the window and escape with in the event of a fire in the house.

It's good to have a plan you've thought through.

Texan99 said...

Being at 17 feet of elevation, we evacuate before major storms shut down the roads. We usually start many days before a storm hits, getting the storm shutters up and making reservations at an inland motel that will take all our animals. We're adamant about leaving at a time, and on a route, that's least likely to involve us in a traffic jam, which sometimes results in an evacuation we might have avoided if we'd waited to see where the storm would actually hit.

If I lived farther inland or at higher elevation (but there's no height around here), I'd certainly shelter in place. The wind is manageable; the storm surge is not. Almost nothing could induce me to ride out a storm below sea level. The very idea leaves me blank with astonishment.

E Hines said...

Like I said, it'll depend on the fire. The decision criteria are well understood.

As to living not much above sea level, I spent a few years in FLA when my wife and I were stationed at Tyndall. No hurricanes came our way, although a couple threatened to, and we'd arrived just after one blew through between Panama City Beach and Ft Walton Beach.

But my wife knew, even then, mother nature will not drive me from my home. Full stop. It's that visceral.

Besides, the universe is malleable, and humans are the hammer and anvil.

Eric Hines

Anonymous said...

I made mental plans and run drills for tornadoes and home intruders. Fire? Eh, wildfire yes, middle-of-the-night house fire not so much. Earthquake? No. Hurricane and storm surge? Nope, because at that point, there's nowhere to run to (I'm at 3800' above sea level.) As Eric says, it has to do with experience (tornado and intruder) and a bit of statistics (earthquake and storm surge). Since the major fire-producing things in Festung Kleinrot are between my sleeping quarters and the doors, I'd probably have to go out the window rather than crawling to the door.

LittleRed1

raven said...

I am of two minds about this- we hear about training and preplanning so we don't have to think about our actions, then we hear about someone who survived because they acted "outside the box".

E Hines said...

Outside the box isn't necessarily unplanned. It certainly doesn't mean wholly without thought in the spur of the moment.

But usually fluidity in the moment is necessary.

Eric Hines

douglas said...

"then we hear about someone who survived because they acted "outside the box". "

Getting into action is half the battle.

Texan99 said...

Preplanning doesn't necessarily mean we follow a routine, just that we have something to fall back on if we're in "deer in the highlights" mode. The idea is that we're even less likely to get into or stay in DITH mode if we have good training, and if we're lucky, we can come out of it into genuine higher-cognition mode and dream up a brilliant strategy to get out of the jam. The more automatic are our basic life-sustaining motions, the more brain is freed up for thinking outside the box. Remember the Everglades crash?

DL Sly said...

Having had the boots on my feet melt while hunkered in a fire shelter listening to the train roll overhead, I tend to have a less-than-concerned reaction to most emergency situations. Much to MH's chagrin.
The only reason I evacuated during the last San Diego wildfires was because of him. I was completely prepared to stay.
However, I full admit that my life's experiences have been such that I rarely fit into any category of normal.
0>;~}

Assistant Village Idiot said...

In the event of an emergency, you will not rise to the occasion. You will revert to the level of your training.