I suggest that you read this article, excerpt below:

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/22/how-people-really-be.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+%28Boing+Boing%29

In her gorgeous book A Paradise Built In Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise In Disaster, Rebecca Solnit shows how this is how almost everybody responds to disaster, across continents and across contexts. When power grids are destroyed and city grids demolished, social grids light up.

This is so cross-cultural -- from Haiti to New Zealand -- that it is probably part of an evolved instinct inherent to our species, and it's not hard to see why. We now know that 60,000 years ago, the entire human race was reduced to a single tribe of 2000 human beings wandering the savannahs of Africa. That was it. That was us. If they -- our ancestors -- didn't have a strong impulse to look out for each other in a crisis, you wouldn't be reading this now.

Yet there are a few examples stubbornly fixed in the popular imagination of people reacting to a natural disaster by becoming primal and vicious. Remember the gangs "marauding" through New Orleans, raping and even cannibalizing people in the Super-Dome after Hurricane Katrina? It turns out they didn't exist. Years of journalistic investigations showed them to be racist fantasies. They didn't happen. Yes, there was some "looting" -- which consisted of starving people breaking into closed and abandoned shops for food. Of course human beings can behave atrociously - but the aftermath of a disaster seems to be the time when it is least likely.

This information is essential for knowing how to respond to disasters. There is a fear that the Japanese government is with-holding information about the dangers of the nuclear meltdown because they don't trust the people to react sensibly and calmly. There is no way of knowing, yet, whether this is true. But understanding this crucial history should guide the government to tell the truth and trust the people. As Solnit puts it: "If you imagine that the public is a danger, you endanger the public."

That last sentence - that really sums it up for me, and succinctly puts my perspective on emergency planning and my direct experiences with emergencies into a single, easy to digest thought.

It makes perfect sense.

The supposed Mad Max/Rambo attitude of regular people is... unlikely. When people have a lot of problems to face just to survive, they're not going to put up with much in the way of outright idiocy, and I think most people know that.

Over 2500 years ago, a Greek slave named Aesop said, "United we stand, divided we fall". It was true then and it's been true all along.

Sue

It's certainly true that adults and parents who are connected with a community are going to do their best to defend it against rogue individuals. Speaking as one parent - we would see it as protecting our children. This is one good reason why individuals who want to "bug out through a devastated city" need to keep a low profile, and avoid contact with citizens a lot of the time. But anyone who is peaceful and cooperative is likely to be welcomed, and integrated into the support structure.

However, if the "Rambo's" form themselves into coordinated groups then things might not be so simple. Maybe in the event that a major American city becomes a "mega-disaster", then things might turn grim. There would have to be a failure of all the survival mechanisms that hold communities together. Then it's conceivable that a more intense struggle for existence could ensue. It would be a situation like what happened in Stalingrad in Russia during WW2. The German soldiers called it "rattenkrieg" (rat-war), and it is depicted in the movie "Enemy at the Gates". I can only imagine this scenario happening if things become apocalyptic.

cheers,
Pete #2

Hey Pete,Tu Hablando Espanol?(Do you Speak spanish?)It will come in Handy,Should you need to Bug-Out of L.A. in any Direction,short of West!Think about it,Going East,You will have to get thru East L.A.,Going North,You will have to get thru San Fernando Valley,Going south,Santa Ana! Google:Street Gangs,of the above mentioned Cities/Area's,Check it out!

In my former careers I have dealt with humanitarian disasters and wars; and I was always up close and personal with the people. I have done extensive training on interviewing skills and used those skills around the globe. I began a discussion a couple of years ago about how important communications skills are in survival situations, all survival situations. People can be your greatest threat or the best opportunity for survival. In December I attended a workshop on "the neurobiology of political violence" and met Dr. David Matsumoto. He has a web site with some training tools for reading facial expressions:
Humintell
It is based on the groundbreaking work of Dr. Paul Ekman which proved that certain emotions and the accompanying facial expressions are universal to humans. If you are talking with someone, and their facial expressions display an emotion which is different from what they are telling you, you can use this. it is either a danger signal or a sign of deception. This can be very useful in survival situations of every kind. These tools are used by the Secret Service, most law enforcement agencies and many other organizations. I have found the skill handy in many situations. Dr. Matsumoto's tools are all web based and much more affordable than anything that was available before. I would highly recommend that you read Paul Ekman's books: "Telling Lies" or "Emotions Revealed" in order to understand how to use this skill properly.

Richlacal. Ha! Ha!! Good point amigo. We will all need to depend on one another out here. I better brush up my Spanish. Seriously :-)

Pete #2

I think the public in general is not a threat - until someone takes charge of them and makes them one. A mob is only as smart as the dumbest member (write that down, in ink). Convincing a mob is easy, convincing individuals is hard - there is something about being anynomous that emboldens some.

I see a family coming at me, I semi-doubt the first reaction from them will be to use violence. On the other hand, three young males - they are more apt to be a leader and two stooges, so I act differently to them than mom, dad and junior. Common sense.

Look at the group as a whole, determine who makes up the group, who the alpha is - is it a gang leader, or a preacher? Makes a world of difference sometimes (notice, sometimes).

I've been on humanitarian missions. Each group of refugees was treated somewhat differently, depending on makeup and circumstances. I was not quite as "nice" to able bodied people pushing to the front of lines as I was the sick/elderly.

Treat people with kindness, but don't let your kindness be miscontrued as weakness.

Pete, with respect, I suggest that you read the the book "Enemy At The Gates". Rattenkrieg was the German shorthand for the vicious fighting in the room-to-room, sewer-to-sewer resistence of the people of Stalingrad fighting against German genocidal aggression. It did not at all describe the way in which the valiant city dwellers acted towards each other. And make no mistake, these citizens were united in defense of their homes, not PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER..

I'd say all that in two words: organized youth. If there are three young males skylarking, I wouldn't worry. If there were three young males acting in a coordinated fashion, I'd worry if their attention were directed at me.

acroplis ... I haven't read the book - just seen the movie. But thanks for the reference ... if i get time I'll do that. i wasn't trying to imply that people on the same side were treating each other that way - just opposing enemies. So yes, in this case it was because of war.

I can't imagine things would ever break down into individual vs. individual. More likely, people will always affiliate into "tribal units" of some kind.

Pete #2

Is anyone here Aware of Life in General in The many Cities,Across our Fair Nation,Presently? The Bronx,Lincoln Hghts,Washington Hghts,Trenton,NJ,Washington/Baltimore,Compton,CA,Los Angeles,Oakland,CA,South Houston,TX,Brownsville,TX,etc.,etc. Horrific Things happen,On a daily Basis,Every Single Day!Now factor in a Large Scale-Emergency/Disaster,How are these Cities Going to Cope?What if You had to Pass through these Area's to get to your Destination/Home,Because Disaster presents you with no other Alternative route,Are you going to use that info the books/movies are teaching you,& Hope for the Best outcome,When you are Confronted?Write that in Ink!Get Informed,Look up a Crime index for Any City in The USA,That should get the Ball Rolling!

Great points, Richlacal. There are large sections of this city I won't go into at anytime. Others I won't go into after dark. I'm sure as heck not going into them during a mass crisis (whether natural disaster, nuke or TEOTWAWKI) unless in a convoy of armed troops.

The original post does ring true though, and it brings to my mind the increased friendliness of this city during and after big snowstorms.

Major snowstorms are a shared circumstance and even around here seems to smooth over the usual social barriers. Strangers are chattier, more tolerant and prone to pitch in to help individuals and community -- whether helping drivers whose cars are stuck, shoveling out an elderly neighbor's sidewalk or turning a hill into a universal park for sledding and tubing.

There are always exceptions, of course, and a few stories of fights over shoveled parking spaces, snowball assaults and peops who won't shovel their own sidewalk for the benefit of pedestrians, let alone anyone else's. And many people are happier with snowstorms, short-term anyway, because they are beautiful.

But by and large snowstorms evince this human tendency to coalesce in times of crisis.

Here are some positives and negatives.

First, the positive story.
I just spoke to a woman who lived in Northridge at the time of the Northridge earthquake in California. She said that after the quake the people in her neighborhood all decided to get together and have a block party. So they put on a big communal barbecue on the block. Everybody pulled out their barbecue stoves and started cooking up meat & hamburgers.

Pretty smart response! Once the electrical power goes off, the stuff in refrigerators will go bad in a couple of days. So you may as well eat the dairy products and meat while they are still good. Also, this type of event gets people into a positive mindset and working together. So I thought that was a very good approach.

And the negative ...

Here's a disaster scenario that put communities into a worst-case situation. It's an unlikely scenario, but not impossible. Let's suppose there is an outbreak of a contagious disease in a large city. Let's also imagine that the contagious agent is highly infectious, has a high fatality rate, and is not well understood (at first). This means that in a few days there are many sick people, hospitals and ER's are overwhelmed, and care providers are dying (along with patients). It also means that the Gov't faces an emergency scenario and might decide to cordon off the whole city and station troops on the exit roads. It may be necessary to give orders to the troops to prevent people leaving - in order to stop the disease from spreading to other towns.

This type of scenario would be hard for people to handle - there would be high levels of fear, and possibly even panic. Unlike some disasters, this one would tend to break down cooperation within communities. Parents are well aware that school kids infect each other easily with all kinds of contagious illnesses. So very likely families would choose to stay in their homes and isolate themselves. Under these circumstances, feelings like doubt, fear and suspicion would work against the positive sides of human nature.

This scenario also gives a case where "bug out through a devastated city" might actually make a lot of sense. Anybody who escapes the city before it is cordoned off might improve their chances of survival significantly.

Obviously, this is truly one of those worst-case disaster scenarios. This is why the Gov't develops plans to react to scenarios involving outbreaks of diseases and chem/bio warfare. Let's hope it remains an unlikely event.

Pete #2

The best chance you have here is to rely on your stockpiled food and water. (I need to stockpile more food) Don't go out unless absolutely necessary and if you do, wear your mask that you cleverly stashed away. In this case, I think it would be reasonable to have preparations to defend one's home.

In this case, bugging out of the city is a bad idea if you plan to go to family/friends. What if you've got whatever the disease is and symptoms just haven't presented yet? Don't want to be spreading that nasty all over.

We don't have to imagine scenarios. There have been plenty of disasters in the world; so where are the examples of people being reduced to savages?
more from the original article
(Johann Hari: The myth of the panicking disaster victim in The Independent)

The vast majority of people behave in the aftermath as altruists, saving their fellow human beings and sharing what they have.

The same predictions are made about every disaster – that once the lid of a tightly policed civilization is knocked off for a second, humans will become beasts. But the opposite is the case...

The evidence gathered over centuries of disasters, natural and man-made, is overwhelming. The vast majority of people, when a disaster hits, behave in the aftermath as altruists. They organise spontaneously to save their fellow human beings, to share what they have, and to show kindness. They reveal themselves to be better people than they ever expected.

When the social scientist Enrico Quarantelli tried to write a thesis on how people descend into chaos and panic after disasters, he concluded: "My God! I can't find any instances of it." On the contrary, he wrote, in disasters "the social order does not break down... Co-operative rather than selfish behaviour predominates".
qjs

Yeah ... one interesting tidbit to add. The lady who went thru' the Northridge quake said that not all of their neighbors demonstrated a sharing and altruistic attitude. Some people decided to hoard their stuff - and would not cooperate. Much later on, after the whole incident was over, that attitude was remembered by folks in the community. There was a social stigma directed at the people who would not share.

We will see the best and the worst of human behavior.

Pete #2

Quick Joey Small,Were you present in Los Angeles during The Rodney King Riots?I was & I Witnessed some Shocking Things!Without getting to Political or Racist,I can Honestly say,The Vast Majority of Looters,Appeared to be Non-Americans,The Rioters were Clearly,Americans & Though The Riots Originated in South Central Los Angeles,The majority of Looting was Carried out,More than 10 miles away!I saw Looting in Van Nuys after The '94 Northridge Quake,Again The Vast Majority,Appeared to be Non-American! What does your Intellectual Reasoning,Tell you?Where was Enrico Quarantelli?

Please don't take offense to this, I'm trying to be creative here, but what is it with the random capitalization. Is your shift key broken, or are you trying to tell us something? IMO it does nothing to clarify the message and is quite distracting. A line break or two wouldn't hurt either. I can read pretty fast but you post won't scan. I keep getting hung on the capitals because their use implies the word is a proper noun.

ie: We used to have a bar on the end of a pier that was called The Pier. You had to walk down the pier to get to The Pier. Capitalize both and it gets real confusing.

Art,No offense taken! I'm Not the writer you are,That's for sure,If this were hand written,It would be Illegible at it's Finest!I make a Strong effort for Spelling though!:)

Maybe. But people can surprise you. They may take the third route -- bug in and isolate, but not try to sneak out because of the off chance they may carry the contagion with them. This takes a lot of personal discipline, and it's not what we expect in the age of me-ism and instant gratification. But I really think a lot of people would be willing to take a (controlled) personal risk for the greater good.

> Is anyone here Aware of Life in General in The many Cities,Across

I'm not sure what you're struggling to say. I used to go to school in Camden, NJ, a very dangerous town. I lived in an area in Philadelphia which was on the safe end of the block, but if I walked to the other end, my life was in danger. Is that you're point? Some places are dangerous without regard to any disaster? Is that news?

Your posts are hard to read, so I'm sure I'm just missing the point.

This New York Times article about one remote village's actions after the quake are remarkable. No one from the outside reached their small village for 12 days.

However, I don't think the remarkable way that these people banded together and self-organized is unique only to Japan. They have more practice at it, just due to the culture, but I think that in general, people are more likely to come together than to turn inward during times of crisis. However, I think that some sort of leadership function is crucial. At least someone to provide the first spark of motivation to get things going.

I think the more doomsday scenarios people envision often require a total lack of any sort of leadership to organize, motivate, and boost morale. As we've seen in North Africa lately, even the threat of violence and physical harm don't necessarily keep everyone at home, if they are motivated and have a goal in mind.

I think the last few paragraphs are also intriguing, about the value of the spontaneous groups and systems that survivors had organized themselves. Often, pre-arranged plans are imposed from above, totally devoid of any input from the people affected. But left to organize themselves, perhaps these are the most useful and enduring plans or systems of them all.

Arney, thank you for that article. It is a compelling account of community survival.

If I get the spelling right it is more a testament to the spell-check included in Firefox than any personal virtue. I'm not sure if it was a complaint, assertion, or handy excuse when one of our founding fathers said 'only a fool can spell a word but one way'. If you like highly variable spelling try reading some Chaucer in the original form. If memory serves there is one section where the same word is spelled three ways. I did it years ago and once you get a roll going it is pretty fun.

I'm far from perfect ie: "fast but you[r] post won't scan" but the ability to scan a text quickly is pretty high on my list of what I'm shooting for. I also value clarity and an artful turn of phrase but I'm never quite sure how and when that happens.

More on-topic, the Japanese grow up having a strong sense of public duty drummed into them. To fail to help someone in need is something of a crime against society, and such crimes trigger a strong sense of shame. Some other sites claimed that the manager of the nuclear plant cried because he lied. More likely he cried because he was simply ashamed that things went wrong. As manager he feels a public duty to anticipate problems and prevent them. Any failure to do this, even unreasonable expectations that he save his forty year old plants through a tidal wave, are taken as a personal failure.

If you want to understand this it might help to look at firefighting in Japan in the late 30s. Firefighters at that time had a sense of dignity and honor. They also fought fire not just with equipment and water, but with resolute will and determination. Every station had a banner that symbolized the heroic history and honor of the company. Each company also had a designated banner holder. This was often the handsomest man and both the banner and his uniform were usually elaborate versions of the standard uniform.

This is somewhat like the regimental colors at the height of the British empire. A regiment would follow their colors and great efforts, many a heroic action, was centered on saving the regimental colors. Having your colors captured was an insult to the regiment and all who served in it. Some regiments had hundreds of years of history.

Japanese fire company colors in the 30s worked like this; at a large fire the banner and holder would be sent to stand in front of the fire. There, striking his most heroic pose, the banner man would symbolically make a stand. His roll was symbolic. In effect daring the fire to advance and inspiring his compatriots to fight harder. The guy holding the banner was never supposed to do anything but stand heroically and should encouragement.

It kind of worked in the 30s. With lightly build single-story houses the fuel burns out fast and if you can knock down and wet the area ahead of a fire the fire may not last long enough to dry the wet fuel or catch. Still ... it was not uncommon for guys holding banners to get burned, and it wasn't unknown for them to die. Worth noting that those who were immolated and remained resolute to the end got special honors. A special shrine commemorated in your honor, regular ceremonies, and having children sing songs about your deeds were all thought fitting if you demonstrated resolute determination.

By the early 40s most fire companies had eliminated the banner holder. This was a response to the western way of doing things but also a practical response to taller, more heavily constructed, and often industrial, buildings where the fire did not spread in a way that a small number of men might set a line as easily as setting a banner and defend it. Modern firefighting is more about defending only what can, or can be made, readily defensible, and giving ground when the fire is too strong. But even into WW2 there were still recorded cases of firemen with gloriously brocaded uniform and banner standing in front of an advancing fire.

The Japanese have never entirely given up on the idea that through sheer force of will and determination you can accomplish anything. That if things go wrong it is, at least in part, a failure of effort, will and determination. That any such failure is shameful and a black mark on the individual, their family, their district, the nation, and the Japanese people. Yakuza are said to lose a finger for failure. In earlier times you might be expected to commit suicide.

You can't associate failure the way the Japanese conceptualize it with western concepts of fault and culpability. A westerner would shrug, tell people that he didn't design it, and walk away. A Japanese manager is expected to accept blame.

Japan is in many ways still a honor/shame controlled culture. They have westernized since I was there. This isn't always a good thing. A honor/shame culture has both strengths and weaknesses. On on hand you have oddities like grown men dresses dressed in finery and holding banners hoping to help stop a natural force like fire through sheer force of will. On the other you have a society where dignity, order, and the public good are held high and strongly maintained.

Here is a BBC article about another village's experience banding together after the tsunami wiped out their community. Not quite as interesting an article as the one I posted yesterday, but still interesting to read about how people actually react in the face of calamity.

I found this article insightful, and also a little reflective of what we're talking about in the "VENTING -- Some things you can never prepare for" thread. It speaks to the complacency we humans tend to develop, even after large-scale disasters, a sort of "It hasn't happened for a while so the threat must be gone" mentality.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/03/2011325112137360914.html

"...not every small town has a long memory... the lessons Yoshihama leaned over a century ago take a while to learn.

"Of course in the short term, the lesson is to build on high ground," said Yokoishi, pointing out that not every town has the same sense of history.

"But in the long term, maybe 10 or 20 years, people will forget and ... they will build by the sea."

Bacpacjac ... I have seen exactly the same things happen out here in L.A. A lot of building has taken place in regions by the San Andreas fault line - it just doesn't make any sense at all. I used to live in the community of Lancaster/Palmdale (CA) which is one of the groups of towns that are on the fault line. In the old days, there were not so many houses, and the buildings were some distance from the fault. But then more people started moving there in the 80's, 90's and the last decade - it became a bedroom community for Los Angeles. Many people commute now. And you can find a lot of homes and 2-story apartments built within half a mile of this major fault line. It is INSANE. But the real estate developers just didn't give a cr*p, and people tend to mentally tune out the danger.

I just checked the latest predictions from the US geological folks (USGS) last week. I reviewed their maps really carefully. A lot of these towns beside the San Andreas fault are going to be TOAST if we get a big quake. That includes Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Banning, Littlerock & Valyermo, Palmdale, Lancaster. And other places.

I just don't know what to say about this aspect of human behavior. It's some horrible combination of greed, stupidity, and short-term thinking.

Pete #2

It just shows you don't have to go all the way to Las Vegas to gamble.

I don't think it is as simple as not building in hazard zones. Mostly it comes down to engineering. Buildings can be built to survive undamaged expected activity on most earthquake zones and not kill their occupants even in the worse case. There may be locations where hazards beyond earthquakes may make building structures cost prohibitive, but those locations are pretty few and far between. Floodplains are hard to justify building on because the water rises every year and they often have better use as farmland. Floodplains are usually quite fertile. Something to keep in mind as the price of oil drives up cost of chemical fertilizers.

When it comes right down to it pretty much every location has issues. Earthquakes, tidal waves are big news now but in a few months it will be something else. Come June down here it will be hurricane season. Blizzards, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes hailstorms, the undead rising from the grave, Republicans ... every place has it's hazards. But good engineering can deal pretty well with most of those.

I'm also a bit nervous about any sort of designation that declares a location safe. I can see it for floods simply because water collects in the low spots so there are clearly safer, and less safe, zones. But earthquakes are a little different. Pretty much every location on earth has had them at one time or another. The lack of an earthquake for a long time is no guarantee that a previously dormant fault won't come alive.

And it isn't just earthquakes. On a building forum I was discussing building codes in Florida and how they have over time jacked up the requirements for resistance to wind damage down here. A builder in the Midwest was telling us how it was good he didn't have to tie down his roofs with metal straps because they didn't get much wind. A week later a line of strong thunderstorms the power of a minor hurricane came through and the same guy noted that while none of the homes he built had lost their roof he was thinking he just got lucky. He talked about finding out how we build in Florida and adopting some of the methods. He though it might give him an edge to tell his customers that his houses met Florida wind standards.

He was pleased to learn that the difference in cost was just a few hundred dollars, a small fraction of the cost of the building. He also thought his customers might get a break on insurance if he had a stronger roof structure and tie-downs.

Point here is that for residential buildings the difference in designing for resistance to earthquakes or not is often a few hundred dollars spent on shear walls and strapping. That the main impediment to building resistant buildings, no matter what you are resisting, is often the simple fact that they haven't built them that way there historically.

There is simply no practical reason why a single family home can't be economically built to be resistant to wind storms, wildfires, earthquakes, blizzards, and most anything else. Even tornadoes can be managed. Pretty hard to design a conventional home to resist a tornado unscathed, but a safe room can be built in it that will provide good, if not perfect, protection for anything short of a direct hit by a very strong twister.

In Key West there were small ranch homes built in the early 50s that included a central windowless safe room. The exterior walls had scads of jalousie windows, as befits a tropical climate in a time before air conditioning, but smack in the center of the home was a room, typically six to eight feet square, that was built like a bunker. Usually that is where the heating unit and water heater was. Most people living in them now don't realize what that small room in the middle of their house was. They get used as storage rooms and closets. Some may have noticed the heavy plank door with steel brackets on the inside that allowed you to bar it quickly by dropping in a set of irons or 2by4s.

Building houses to resist local conditions is nothing new. A smart move considering that it wasn't until the mid-60s that people in Key West could count on a significant warning.

I worked for a construction crew,when I lived in Florida.I helped build many homes from Boca Raton down to Hialeah.Every single family home built,were built using Tie-Beam's on top of Full grout Block Foundations,& Truss Jack Roofs with 5/8" T&G Plywood.Every sheet of plywood required 4- Hurricane clips(L-brackets with 4-8d nails ea.)to secure the roof to trusses,besides the 16d nails used on the exterior.Every truss required 2-3/16"x2'Hurricane straps w/8-16d nails ea.end to the Beam plates.King studs were required at All doors/windows,& Laminated webplate headers were standard.4"x6"Web plates w/10-4d nails,every 2' for interior walls & Hurricane Z-plates on Every stud,Top/Bottom Plates 8-4d nails per Z. That is Just the Rough-in Construction at Bare Minimum Bldg Code for South Florida in 1985,As I knew it!Hurricane Andrew forced the Code Bar,further up!A Home like that here in CA,would crumble up into a Mass Heap, if it were built atop a Liquifaction zone!

Richlacal, I think you're onto something. Not to sound paranoid, but there are potential natural threats in every location. Some places are more active and predictable than others, though I'm not sure if that makes preparing more or less difficult. Complacency works on both sides.

EDIT: Further to your point, I just read this, and there was another one further down the line a few months ago. It's not my hometown but that track goes through our little dot on the map, and it's our number one potential bug-out scenario.

It happened to me when I was a kid actually, on a different CN line. A train carrying propane derailed in the city I grew up in. My mom was a nurse and had to go to work to evacuate the patients. Dad evac'd with my brother and I about 3 hours away. I don't remember much about it except thinking "Yeah! We get to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house!"

http://news4mobile.ca/cpe/db_11527/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=IBLKwQXU&detailindex=3

I don't worry about regular folks becoming vicious thugs in a disaster. I'm more concerned about the ones who are already vicious thugs, and who won't likely change their ways in a disaster.

Ditto.

Richlacal wrote:
>Quick Joey Small,Were you present in Los Angeles during The >Rodney King Riots?

In what way is a riot; a natural or man made 'disaster'?
No one is claiming people can't be cruel. War, racism, crime and genocide are all too frequent. But to claim as soon as a hurricane or earthquake hits, people resort to savagery is not backed up by the evidence.
You are right, these things do happen; I just don't think they are part of what most people mean by 'disasters'.
And thread contributors will have to do better than just quote the media. They were the ones who told us New Orleans instantly became a war zone.
qjs

In the 2003 Blackouts, people walked home through the Bronx, Washington Heights, Bedford Sty - no problems.
In the 1998 Bay Earthquakes, Oakland was fine.

The great swarming masses you envision...they are in your mind.

that story is in the book mentioned in the article.

The ground water in Japan is now radioactive. That's in the news, right now. The End of the world as we know it is happening in part of Japan. So, where are the riots? Where are the bands of Nija assassins? Where is the Yakuza mob taking from all they can find?

Oh, wait...it's only in our minds.

Hey Martin,There is Nothing in my posts,re: Swarming masses!Before you criticize me,Make sure you have the facts down a bit more Accurately!Quick Joey Small,A Riot such as was mentioned,Is a Man-made Disaster!As a Former Constable,I'm sure you have attended to something similar,ie. Soccer Games,Labor Strikes,Anti-Tax hike Defenders,etc. Glock-a-Roo,Answered it All Perfectly!Hey Martin,Did you walk home through Trenton/West philly,EVER?

I've walked all over New York, from the South Bronx, to Bed Stuy, to Harlem, to Washington Heights, and everywhere in between. In fact, after escaping from the WTC on 9/11, I walked to my family's home in Morningside Heights. I have survived all of these adventures, and even relied upon the volunteered kindness of strangers to help me on my way (particularly on 9/11 and during the blackout of 2003).

In all my travels around the world I have learned one important thing. Most people, most places, most of the time, are good.

I am always ready to meet a bad apple when it happens (and it has), but it is all the more surprising when it happens because of how rare it is.

That said, know your area. NYC in 2001 or 2011 is a different place than NYC in the 1970s. But even in the blackouts of that decade, most people in most places behaved themselves.

In a mega disaster, I expect to need to rely on my neighbors.

"But even in the blackouts of that decade, most people in most places behaved themselves."

The birth rate went up 9 months later...

Sue

Toronto doesn't have the reputation that NY does, but when my hubby walked home during the 2003 east coast black-out, he said people were very pleasant. A shopkeeper even gave him a bottle of water. Nobody I know experienced a behaviour problem. In fact, most reported block parties, and got to know there neighbours better.

While I wish to believe this...People have trampled over and killed in walmarts during the holidays.......People are animals..rawr...

You are taking about crowds. People have also been killed at soccer matches and burning nightclubs among other places when panic sets in. One good reason to avoid large gatherings.

Under more "normal" conditions, most people, most of the time, are fairly reasonable and helpful. Just watch out for that two percent that isn't.

Large Gatherings and crowds Id suspect would happen during a large scale natural disaster. Campsites, parks, Rest stops, Large parkinglots pretty much any large flat plot of land and or locations people are use to resting in may easily become crowded and over packed which is often a recipe for issues on its own let alone throwing in the need for supplies such as food and water.