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!:)