Whose fault would it be then? Who would you point the finger of blame at in the hypothetical scenario you just outlined? Who would you send to prison because it was "their fault"?

Sometimes bad things happen to good people through no fault of their own. That doesn't mean you get to blame someone else for the event.

Assigning blame is one topic. Discussing the moral aspects of a failure to respond or a mis-communication between the authorities is different. Authorities should respond to credible reports, but only after taking their own safety into consideration first. But things happen, poor choices are made, and things look different in retrospect. Learn from it but don't waste time slinging blame around - it's counterproductive.

On a related note, I see that families of the people who died in that recent airplane crash are blaming everybody. The airline, the pilots, the training they had, the airplane manufacturer, to deicing system ... and they're throwing lawsuits around to add exclamation points to their blaming. Nobody knows why the plane went down yet, it's still under investigation. I feel sorry for the families involved, but I abhor what they are doing with the lawsuits. They will no doubt end up ruining reputations and lives in their zeal to prematurely assign blame while hitting everybody, the blameless included, with these shotgun lawsuits. It wasn't the fault of the passengers riding on the airplane, so everybody else is fair game, right? What kind of thinking is that?!