'interesting but not factual'

Some scenarios are fun, sexy and not at all likely:

-- Car going into water

- A commercial aircraft crashing, and passengers surviving in a wilderness area

-Emergency cutting of seat belts

Please fell free to add your own

The fear of a wild, Escape from New York-type situation after a major natural disaster. With respect to Katrina, in particular, so much of what we saw or read about turned out to be fantasy and gossip. Some news outlets like the Times Picayune and LA Times had the integrity to admit that fact after some time had passed and more investigating had been done. That said, there were also some horrible things that happened after Katrina that most folks haven't heard much about so I'm not saying that nothing bad happened. Just not much of the senational stuff (Remember the piles of dead bodies stacked in the freezers at the Superdome? Or the heated firefight at one of the bridges between "looters" and police that turned out to be the police and private security contractors firing on each other?)

With so many videos from the Indonesian and Japanese tsunamis, I think most people are getting away from the impression that a tsunami is this towering wall of water that breaks and crashes down onto the beach. Tsunamis generally don't crest and break on shore. The water rises and just keeps pouring ashore.

That hiding up under a freeway overpass is the safest place to be when a tornado passes overhead. In fact, the overpass acts like a funnel and actually increases the wind speed under the overpass, making any flying debris that much more dangerous as flying missiles. Better to seek a ditch in open ground away from any vehicles or other large objects that may get blown on top of you.

And lastly, zombies!

Not clear what you mean by "not factual."

In the category of "not at all likely" I would put: armageddon/TEOTWAWKI and my American Airlines flight crashing. Yet, large-scale EMP damage, cyber attacks and plain crashes are not beyond the realm of possibility (one of the reasons I like aisle seats, exit rows and not wearing nylons on planes).

Prior to this past August, I also would have put Earthquake Damage in Washington, D.C. in the extremely unlikely category. Yet, a house across the street lost part of its chimney, the National Cathedral suffered millions of dollars of damage and the Washington Monument is cracked and still closed.

If I lived in the Pacific Northwest, I'd be preparing for a Cascadia Subduction Zone quake, though it is unlikely in my lifetime.

One decade and three months ago, airplanes crashing into office buildings seemed beyond the imagination of all but Tom Clancy.

I haven't crashed a car in the three decades I've been driving, yet I still wear a seatbelt, like having airbags and have the means to cut it should my car go off the GW Parkway into the Potomac. Moreover, I like having the ability to assist someone else should I happen upon an accident. Cars sometimes do end up in the water and there is a lot of water around here.

Thanks to some brave bystanders and professional responders, plane crash victims survived the Potomac on a freezing, snowy January day (Air Florida flight #90 on January 13, 1982).

I've been hiking for decades, have never gotten lost and know a lot of backpackers but haven't known anyone who needed SAR, yet I still carry a compass, matches, etc.

Granted, some things are a lot more likely than others. The likeliest things I prepare for are temporary power outages, water service disruption and being stranded in the car.

Those three situations can arise for a number of reasons -- some likelier than others.

I think the question is not about the likelihood of something, but about whether something is true or not. Like the perception that hiding under a freeway overpass is a good place to take shelter from a tornado, when it is actually more dangerous than in open ground.

Okay, thanks.

Actually, looking at the original list, I guess unlikely also can enter it. So, either way. Have at it, folks!

How about breaking it down into what you have, or expect to have, gone through.

Likely (what you have been through more then once, and you expect to happen again with some frequency): For me that's power outages, loss of water, boil water order, wildfires, minor earthquakes, car breakdowns, and car breakins.

Unlikely (have been through it once, or has real potential to happen): Car accidents, home break ins, criminal assault, loss of computer data, house/car fire, large (knock over furniture, some structural damage) earthquakes.

Possible, but very unlikely: TEOWAWKI/PAW, tornados, flooding, catastrophic (flatten city) earthquakes, hurricanes, and blizzards. I know the great plains and east coast people are giving me strange looks right now, but outside of a couple of minor tornados/waterspouts about 20+ years ago, none of that has happened in my immediate locale.

It's an odds game and you play it like this.

Basically, you look at the numbers and say of every X units (miles, number of people, hours of use) Y% suffer (catastrophic failure of some kind).

Then you need to trend Y over t (time) and you get a real sense of risk.

That's why for me the most terrifying thing is a big plate of cheese fries, because they are a clear and present danger to my health, I have the numeric evidence to bear this out. I still love to have them now and then.

In fact, many of the most risky things- the stuff that WILL kill you - are totally under my control!

Hypertension
Smoking tobacco
High cholesterol
Poor diet
Overweight and obesity
Physical inactivity
Alcohol Abuse
Indoor air pollution from solid fuels

Also on the list is Hospitalization (infections)

Driving is another major risk (as compared to any number of other things that could go wrong).

You're also taking your life into your hands when you climb anything taller than your knees (falls kill so many people every year).

Somewhere way, way down the line is being in a plane landing in the Potomac or Hudson or Long Island Sound, and I also factor into that the fact that the plane has advanced safety systems, highly trained crew, and over-engineered equipment.

The fun(?) stuff is the outrageous "Tom Clancy" grade stuff...makes a great story because it's so very, very rare.

Now we all like to think of the classic 1-2 punch of "terrorist in airplane v. office building" which, I think before the September 11th attacks was completed by one Andrew Joseph Stack III, 53, of north Austin. Then we had the Twin Towers and then....well, nothing really since then. Certainly a few drunk and confused passengers being walloped by passengers and crew who THOUGHT they were on a plane that was to be taken over... but I'll put that into the "not worth worrying about" category.

Many people have this image of the "cities emptying out" and I think that they imagine starving hordes marching across lawns and attacking anything that moves (we often use "zombies" as a proxy for "poor underclass who don't look like me" in these scenarios). Yet the evidence just isn't there for this as an issue worth much consideration. The book "Paradise in Hell" really gets into the strong communities that form in natural disasters.

Finally, there's that most curious of phenomena, the sense that in any emergency you're on your own and your at greater risk from sharing, helping and being a part of the solution.

The "I'll do OK by myself" attitude can actually kill you.

Which reminds me of a joke that one of the priests at my high school told me:

Once, there was a home in a valley and a dam was about to break nearby.

Emergency workers in a truck came to the door of a man and told him to get away with them in the truck.

"No, I'll be OK, God will provide for me" he told the workers.

Sure enough the dam broke and the water began to quickly rise. Again the workers came, this time in a boat, and he refused to get in, saying, "No, I don't need your boat, God will take care of me."

The water rose higher and higher, and the man went to his roof. A rescue helicopter came, and lowered a basket and a rescue technician. "No need for that, God will look after me" said the man, and just then the swirling floodwaters pushed hard and the house collapsed under him and washed away, smashing and drowning the man in a torrent of debris.

The man arrived in heaven, and asked God why he'd been allowed to die so horribly. God replied, "I sent people with a Truck, A Boat and A Helicopter, what more did you want?"

My point is that one of the most important "it just ain't so" scenarios is the one where people don't band together.

Well said Martin. Well said.

My favorite unlikely scenario is being attacked/killed by predators in the wilds. Being chewed upon by a mountain lion, black bear, coyote, rattlesnake, etc. essentially ain't gonna happen. You are more likely to suffer death or injury at the hands of honey bees or dogs (well, they don't have hands, but you get the point).

Compared to deaths and injuries resulting from falls and drowning, the injuries from wild animals are hardly worth bothering about. It follow that carrying weapons to ward off those attacks is a waste of resources. There are good reasons for weapons, but wild animals are not among them.

Probably the most hazardous activity in which we engage is driving our vehicles.