Originally Posted By: jshannon
Civility flys out the door in many bad situations. Look at New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.


On another forum there was a gentleman who was of the opinion that the people in NOLA were all scum and that they resorted to raw violence and strong-arm robbery as soon as the chips were down. He cited a video clip that showed a man holding up a young child and asking for diapers and baby food. This was cited as an example of an unprepared thug.

I posted back that there might be many reasons he was unprepared and that he obviously wasn't acting like a thug. A lot of people were caught unprepared, including the Airforce and National Guard, because the flooding came after the Hurricane had passed. The danger was assumed to have passed. Things went from relief, sunshine and clear skies, to over-the-head dark waters in minute. It is not unlikely that if you had a closet full of survival gear and happened to be in the wrong spot where the water came up very quickly you might not have been able to get to it. Assuming you didn't have a boat a BOB might not of helped much if it wouldn't float.

The second point is that he was asking for help. He wasn't threatening or ordering or demanding help. He was asking. Not exactly thug behavior.

Originally Posted By: climberslacker
This is a topic that I haven't realy thought about untill now, Nomad, thanks for the insight of katrina, as the news only shows the bad things. (think of it, how many times have you heard "shots fired" and how few times do you hear "so and so helped a child find their parents"), only the bad stuff


In at least one documented case one of the well celebrated 'shootouts' was a case of blue-on-blue. A team of undercover cops, in plainclothes and muscular, got in a shootout with uniformed officers. Shots were fired. There were reports of other cases of macho, testosterone driven police and paramilitary forces, including Blackwater mercenaries billed at about $1500 a day, running into each other with drawn guns.

There was also much talk at the time of people shooting at helicopters. So much talk and assumed danger that helicopter operations were curtailed in some areas. After the fact the helicopter crews were questioned. Many said they heard shots. None claimed they were actually shot at. None of the helicopters had bullet holes or other evidence of hostile action.

So where did the gunfire come from? Some of it was from panicked and hostile police. Some from panicked homeowners. But this is the south. Lots of people have guns. At the time, and seeing people desperate for help, it occurred to me that a lot of that gunfire was probably a distress signal and intended to get attention. Lots of southerners hunt and most remember that he standard distress signal is three shots.

Sounds to me like this might be another case of people seeing what they expect. A lot of people, and a lot of the police coming from outside the area, expected a war zone. To them gunshots were signs of violent intent. Did they mistake a distress signal for violent intent and needlessly suspend helicopter operations? I think so.

In a survival situation you have to make the right choices based on the correct information. To determine what is really going on you have to reach beyond your expectations, biases and prejudices.